Voice application platform

ABSTRACT

Among other things, requests are received from voice assistant devices expressed in accordance with different corresponding protocols of one or more voice assistant frameworks. Each of the requests represents a voiced input by a user to the corresponding voice assistant device. The received requests are re-expressed in accordance with a common request protocol. Based on the received requests, responses to the requests are expressed in accordance with a common response protocol. Each of the responses is re-expressed according to a protocol of the framework with respect to which the corresponding request was expressed. The responses are sent to the voice assistant devices for presentation to the users.

BACKGROUND

This description relates to voice application platforms.

Voice application platforms provide services to voice assistants andvoice assistant devices to enable them to listen to and respond to endusers' speech. The responses can be spoken or presented as text, images,audio, and video (items of content). In some cases the responses involveactions such as turning off an appliance.

Voice assistants, such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft'sCortana, and Google's Assistant, are accessed from servers byproprietary voice assistant devices such as Amazon Echo and AppleHomePod, or sometimes on generic workstations and mobile devices.

Voice assistant devices typically have microphones, speakers,processors, memory, communication facilities, and other hardware andsoftware. A voice assistant device can detect and process human speechto derive information representing an end user's request, express thatinformation as a request message (which is sometimes called an intent orcontains an intent) in accordance with a predefined protocol, andcommunicate the request message through a communication network to aserver.

At the server, a voice application receives and processes the requestmessage and determines an appropriate response. The response isincorporated into a response message expressed in accordance with apredefined protocol. The response message is sent through thecommunication network to the voice assistant device. The voice assistantinterprets the response message and speaks or presents (or takes actionsspecified by) the response. The work of the voice application issupported by an infrastructure of operating systems and other processesrunning on the server.

The services provided by the server to the client voice assistantdevices to enable their interactions with end users are sometimes calledvoice assistant services (which are sometimes also called or includeskills, actions, or voice applications).

Interaction between an end user and a voice assistant can include aseries of requests and responses. In some cases, requests are questionsposed by end users and the responses are answers to the questions.

Typically, the server, the voice assistant devices, the voiceassistants, the voice assistant services, the predefined protocols, andbasic voice applications are designed together as part of a proprietaryvoice assistant framework. To enable third parties—such as brands thatwant to engage with the end users through the voice assistants—to createtheir own voice applications, the frameworks provide proprietary APIs.

SUMMARY

In some implementations, the universal voice application platform thatwe describe here provides brands and organizations with the ability tocreate and maintain engaging voice applications in one location thatservices Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomePod, MicrosoftCortana, and other devices. The platform is designed to offer brands andorganizations the ability to deploy a voice application quickly whileoffering flexibility via customization capabilities.

The platform provides features that handle voice requests and arebundled within modules. The features include handlers that process voicerequests for events, FAQs, daily updates, reminders, checklists, surveysand latest news, and other pre-defined features. Module bundlesreference features based on common use cases related to industryspecific needs and contain sample content to enable speed-to-market forbrands and organizations.

Brand authors can administer voice content within the platform's voicecontent management system. The voice content management system offers anintuitive interface that does not require technical knowledge to create,modify, and remove content that shapes the voice experience. Theplatform's content management system also provides guidance and insightto brand administrators via end-user usage analytics captured over time.Guidance includes clues such as visual indicators for supported devicesby media type (e.g., video and image media supported by the Amazon EchoShow). Insights include analytics regarding the success rate of aresponse for a given question across device types (e.g., and insightthat Google responds more to the same question than Amazon Alexa).

Behind the scenes, the platform is cloud-based, eliminating the need forbrands and organizations to invest in additional infrastructure. Thecloud-based offering also results in regular updates and enhancementsthat are automatically available to brands and organizations that arecustomers of the platform.

The platform uses a layered architecture that does not rely ondependencies from other layers in the system. The layers include a voiceAPI layer, a business logic layer, a feature and module layer, a CMSlayer, and a data layer.

Among the unique aspects of the platform are the following:

1. The platform processes data from multiple voice assistant frameworks(such as Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomePod, chatbots into a singularAPI/business logic layer. The platform abstracts the data and processesit to enhance the understanding of the end user's intent. The platformuses graph-based pattern matching as opposed to a rules-based engine.The graph-based pattern matching allows a consistent and confidentapproach to managing mapping cross-assistant intents with the feature ofthe platform to use. This makes the voice applications more manageableand updateable while still giving the flexibility to enable machinelearning to update positions of nodes in the graph. The graph-basedapproach only requires one step to support a newly added voice assistantframework. A new node (data-point) is added to a graph database tocreate a connection between voice intents from an end-user.2. Since the platform has access to data from multiple voice assistantframeworks the platform can compare how certain frameworks performrelative to others. For example, the platform can see the failure ratesof different voice applications and features across the various voiceassistant frameworks and as a result can use machine learning andalgorithms to understand an end user's intent better than the specificvoice assistant framework that they are using. This is possible bydetecting patterns of success and failure for each framework for thesame type of content and determine what changes would make it moresuccessful in turn allowing for finding the best superset of contentvariations to fit all supported frameworks.3. Since the platform collects performance data across multiple devicesthrough a single API it can collect and analyze performance and providecontent recommendations effectively. The platform uses machine learningand its own algorithms to report back how one voice application is doingrelative to another in order to make real-time dynamic contentsuggestions to voice application developers directly within the userinterface of the platform. This can optimize the performance of a voiceapplication and enhance the overall end user experience.4. The platform supports sets of dynamic content offering more than oneway to answer a question or give a response. This creates a moreengaging voice experience since the prompts and responses can changefrom session to session. It also allows for the creation of personas andchanging the voice experience depending on the preferences anddemographics of the end user. By contrast, for example, if ten end usersask Alexa the same question, the voice assistant will interact in thesame way all ten times. The platform described here allows the voiceapplication developer to set up infinite different responses for each ofthe ten users and the responses can even be personalized to eachspecific individual. For example, if the platform determined that theend user is a 35-year-old female living in the Georgia, then thedeveloper may decide that that end user may be more comfortable talkingto another female who has a southern accent and who speaks using localcolloquialisms and local references. The platform allows the developerto change the words that the specific voice platform uses when speakingto the end user. The developer also can use the platform to recordamateur or professional voice talent with the relevant gender, accent,dialect, etc. The result is a more authentic/human interaction betweenthe end user and their voice assistant device.5. The platform natively supports multilingual content for prompts andresponses. This is useful in order to reach a larger audience within theUnited States and worldwide. It also creates more inclusive and humanexperiences between end users and their voice assistant devices.Multilingual support is built into the interface for non-Englishspeaking administrators along with the ability to add, modify and removemultilingual content.6. The platform offers both speed to market via pre-defined modules withsample content and flexibility via customization. Platform lets adeveloper use the pre-defined modules and the platform's contentmanagement system or create a custom voice experience using acombination of their own modules and content that interfaces with theplatform via API's. This is important because it will enable voice appcreators/administrators to create and manage more customized andauthentic voice experiences, which will ultimately benefit end users.7. Using a human voice for prompts and responses as opposed to an AIcomputer voice leads to a more authentic and engaging experience. Theplatform allows administrators to create and edit audio and videocontent directly within the platform. There is no need to leave theplatform to create new content. An administrators can create a voiceinteraction in a voice application, including the creation of rich media(audio and video) content all in one place. In typical known, anadministrators is expected to create audio and video assets outside ofthe voice application platform. The platform enables administrators toadd media directly within the platform and its user interface, thusincreasing efficiency and speed to market. In addition, this ultimatelyleads to deeper, richer voice experiences for the end user.8. Voice assistant devices vary in how they handle multi-media based onits internal hardware. One device may support video, audio, images andtext while another may only support text and audio. The platform offersmedia guidance on whether a specific piece of content within theplatform is supported by particular voice Assistant devices andframeworks, in real time directly in the user interface of the platform.This provides user with vital information on what content he or sheshould focus on while learning how to optimize the experience on aspecific voice assistant device.

Therefore, in general, in an aspect, requests are received from voiceassistant devices expressed in accordance with corresponding protocolsof one or more voice assistant frameworks. Each of the requestsrepresents a voiced input by a user to the corresponding voice assistantdevice. The received requests are re-expressed in accordance with acommon request protocol. Based on the received requests, responses tothe requests are expressed in accordance with a common responseprotocol. Each of the responses is re-expressed according to a protocolof the framework with respect to which the corresponding request wasexpressed. The responses are sent to the voice assistant devices forpresentation to the users.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. The requests are expressed in accordance withcorresponding protocols of two or more voice assistant frameworks. Thevoice assistant frameworks include a framework of at least one ofAmazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, or a chatbot developer. The generatingof the responses includes using information from the requests totraverse a graph. Traversing the graph includes identifying features tobe used to implement the responses. The features are organized inmodules. At least one of the modules is pre-defined. At least one of themodules is custom defined. At least one of the modules includes acollection of pre-defined features with pre-defined items of contenttailored to a specific industry or organization. The features includeinformation about items of content to be included in the responses. Thefeatures include information about dynamic items of content to beincluded in the responses. At least one of the items of content ispre-defined. At least one of the items of content is custom defined. Thegeneration of the responses to the requests includes executing a voiceapplication. The voice application includes a collection of functionsthat generate responses to human spoken requests. A generated responseincludes a verbal output. A generated response triggers other functionswhile providing the verbal output. The instructions are executable bythe processor to: receive data about requests and correspondingresponses for two or more of the frameworks, and analyze the receiveddata to determine comparative performance of the responses for theframeworks. The performance includes performance of one or more of thevoice assistant frameworks. The performance includes performance of oneor more features used to implement the responses. The performanceincludes performance of one or more items of content included in theresponses. The performance includes performance of one or more voiceapplications.

The instructions are executable by the processor to expose at a userinterface of a voice application platform, features for selection andmanagement of items of content to be included in the responses. In realtime as the items of content are being selected or managed, informationis exposed through the user interface about relative performances ofrespective items of content associated with characteristics of the itemsof content. Information is received through the user interface aboutselected or managed items of content. A voice application is executed togenerate the responses including presentation of the selected andmanaged items of content. The user interface is configured to enable anon-technically trained person to select or manage the items of contentand provide and receive information about the items of content. Theinstructions are executable by the processor to enable selection ofitems of content to be included in a given one of the responses, fromalternative possible items of content. The selection of the items ofcontent to be included in the given response are based on a context of avoiced input of an end user. The context of the voiced input of the enduser includes a geographic location of the voice assistant device towhich the response is to be sent. The context of the voiced input of theend user includes demographic characteristics of the end user.

The instructions are executable by the processor to present a userinterface, configure the user interface to (a) enable creating voiceapplications for processing the requests and for generating thecorresponding responses, (b) maintain modules of features to which therequests can be matched to generate the responses, including standardmodules and custom modules, (c) include in each of the modules, a set offeatures that correspond to contexts in which the responses will bepresented to the end users, and (d) expose the modules through the userinterface.

The instructions are executable by the processor to expose at a userinterface of a voice application platform features that enable selectingand managing items of content to be included in the responses. Each ofthe items of content requires the voice assistant devices to havecorresponding content presentation capabilities. During the selectingand managing of the items of content, information is simultaneouslyexposed through the user interface about the capabilities of voiceassistant devices that conform to respective different voice assistanceframeworks to present the items of content being selected and managed.The voice application platform guides non-technically trained usersabout capabilities of the voice assistant frameworks and how they willrepresent images, audio, video, and other forms of media.

In general, in an aspect, requests are received through a communicationnetwork from voice assistant devices that conform to one or moredifferent voice assistant frameworks. The requests are for service basedon speech of end-users. The speech of the end users expresses intents.Data derived from the requests for service is used to traverse a graphof nodes and edges to reach features that match the respective requestsfor service. The features are executed to generate responses. Theresponses are sent through the communication network to the voiceassistant devices to cause them to respond to the respective end users.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. The voice assistant devices from which the requestsare received conform to two or more different voice assistantframeworks. The data is derived from the requests for service byabstracting information in the requests to a data format that is commonacross the two or more different voice assistant frameworks. The nodesof the graph are updated using outputs of a machine learning algorithm.Information about the requests is used to identify an initial node ofthe graph at which to begin the traversal. A node is added automaticallyto the graph to serve as the initial node of the graph at which to beginthe traversal with respect to requests that conform to an additionalvoice assistant framework.

In general, in an aspect, requests are received through a communicationnetwork from voice assistant devices that conform to one or moredifferent voice assistant frameworks. The requests are for service basedon speech of end-users. The speech of the end users expresses intents.Responses to the received requests are determined. The responses areconfigured to be sent through the communication network to the voiceassistant devices to cause them to respond to the respective end users.Measures of the success of the determinations of the responses areevaluated. Based on the relative measures of success of the responses, auser can, through the user interface, manage subsequent responses torequests for service.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. the Voice assistant devices from which the requestsare received conform to two or more different voice assistantframeworks. Suggested responses are presented to the user through theuser interface based on the evaluated measures of success, and the usercan select responses to be sent to the voice assistant devices based onthe suggested responses. The evaluation of measures of the successincludes evaluating success of items of content carried by the responsesacross two or more of the different voice assistant frameworks. Theevaluation of the measures of the success includes evaluating success ofthe responses relative to the respective voice assistant frameworks ofthe voice assistant devices to which the responses are to be sent. Theevaluation of the measures of the success includes evaluating success ofthe responses relative to two or more different voice applicationsconfigured to receive the requests and determine the responses. Theitems of content to be carried in subsequent responses are managed basedon the measures of success.

In general, in an aspect, features are exposed at a user interface of avoice application platform that enable selecting and managing items ofcontent to be included in responses to be provided by a voiceapplication to voice assistant devices that conform to one or moredifferent voice assistant frameworks, In real time while the items ofcontent are being selected and managed, information is exposed throughthe user interface about relative performances of respective items ofcontent associated with characteristics of the items of content.Information is received through the user interface about selected andmanaged items of content. A voice application is executed to generatethe responses to include the selected and managed items of content.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. Usage data is aggregated from the voice assistantdevices that conform to the two or more different voice assistantframeworks. Information is generated about the relative performances ofrespective items of content from the aggregated usage data. The usagedata is aggregated through a universal API. The information about therelative performances is generated by a machine learning algorithm.

In general, in an aspect, requests for service are received through acommunication network from voice assistant devices that conform to oneor more different voice assistant frameworks. The requests for serviceare based on speech of end-users. The speech of the end users expressesintents. Responses to the received requests are determined. Theresponses are configured to be sent through the communication network tothe voice assistant devices to cause them to respond to the respectiveend users. The responses include items of content. The items of contentincluded in a given one of the responses are selected from alternativepossible items of content. The selection of the items of content to beincluded in the given response are based on a context of the expressedintent of an end user.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. The voice assistant devices from which the requestsare received conform to two or more different voice assistantframeworks. One of the voice assistant frameworks includes a chatbotframework. The context of the expressed intent of the end user mayinclude the geographic location of the voice assistant device to whichthe response is to be sent. The context of the expressed intent of theend user may include demographic characteristics of the end user. Thedemographic characteristics include linguistic characteristics inferredfrom a geographic location of the voice assistant device to which theresponses are to be sent or inferred from characteristics of wordscontained in the received requests. The demographic characteristics mayinclude age. The linguistic characteristics include local colloquialismsor local references. The demographic characteristics may include gender.The end user preferences based on which the items of content to beincluded in the given response can be selected.

In general, in an aspect, a user interface is presented for developmentof voice applications. The user interface is configured to enablecreation of voice applications for processing requests received fromvoice assistant devices and for generating corresponding responses forthe voice assistant devices to present to end users. Modules of featuresare maintained to which the requests can be matched to generate theresponses. Each of the modules includes a set of features thatcorrespond to contexts in which the responses will be presented to theend users. The maintaining of the modules includes (a) maintainingstandard modules for corresponding contexts, and (b) enabling generationand maintenance of custom modules of features to which the requests canbe matched to generate custom responses for the voice assistant devices.The modules are exposed through the user interface.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. Items of content are maintained to be used with thefeatures in generating the responses. The maintaining of the items ofcontent includes (a) maintaining standard items of content, and (b)enabling generation and maintenance of custom items of content to beused with the features to generate custom responses for the voiceassistant devices. The contexts relate to products or services in adefined market segment. The contexts relate to demographics of targetgroups of end users. The contexts relate to capabilities of the voiceassistant devices. The contexts relate to types of content items to beused with the features in generating the responses.

In general, in an aspect, a user interface is presented for developmentof voice applications. The user interface is configured to enablecreation of voice applications for processing requests received fromvoice assistant devices and for generating corresponding responses forthe voice assistant devices to present to end users. Responses to thereceived requests are determined. The responses are configured to besent through the communication network to the voice assistant devices tocause them to respond to the respective end users. The responses includeitems of content. The user interface enables creation and editing ofitems of the content in rich media formats for inclusion with theresponses.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. The rich media formats include image, audio andvideo formats. The user interface is presented by a platform thatenables the creation of the voice applications. The platform enablesrecording and editing of the items of the content directly within theplatform through the user interface area

In general, in an aspect, exposing features at a user interface of avoice application platform. The features enable selecting and managingitems of content to be included in responses to be provided by a voiceapplication to voice assistant devices that conform to one or moredifferent voice assistant frameworks. Each of the items of contentrequires the voice assistant devices to have corresponding contentpresentation capabilities. While the items of content are being selectedand managed, information is simultaneously exposed through the userinterface about the capabilities of voice assistant devices that conformto respective different voice assistance frameworks to present the itemsof content being selected and managed.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. The voice assistant devices to which the responsesare to be provided conform to two or more different voice assistantframeworks. The content presentation capabilities include capabilitiesof hardware and software of the voice assistant devices. The contentpresentation capabilities relate to types of content items. The types ofcontent items include text, images, audio, and video.

In general, in an aspect, a user interface is presented for developmentof voice applications. The user interface is configured to enablecreation of voice applications for processing requests received fromvoice assistant devices and for generating corresponding responses forthe voice assistant devices to present to end users. Responses to thereceived requests are determined. The responses are configured to besent through a communication network to the voice assistant devices tocause them to respond to the respective end users, the responsesincluding items of content expressed in natural language. The userinterface enables a user to select and manage the expression of one ormore of the items of content in any one of two or more naturallanguages.

Implementations may include one or a combination of two or more of thefollowing features. The user interface is presented in any one of two ormore different natural languages. Each item of content is representedaccording to a data model. The representation of each of the items ofcontent inherits an object that contains properties for the naturallanguage of the item of content.

These and other aspects, features, and implementations can be expressedas methods, apparatus, systems, components, program products, methods ofdoing business, means or steps for performing a function, and in otherways.

These and other aspects, features, and implementations will becomeapparent from the following descriptions, including the claims.

DESCRIPTION

FIGS. 1, 2 through 10, 14 through 21, and 29 through 32 are a blockdiagrams.

FIGS. 11A, 11B, 12, and 13 are examples of code.

FIGS. 22 through 28 and 33 are user interface screens.

As shown in FIG. 1, here we describe a technology 10 that provides auniversal voice application platform 12 (which we sometimes call simplya “platform” or a “universal platform” or a “cross-device platform”).The platform is configured for (among other activities) creating,storing, managing, hosting, and executing voice applications 14 andproviding voice assistant services 11 to voice assistants 13 and voiceassistance devices 18. The platform serves two classes of users.

One class comprises end users 28 of the voice assistant devices andvoice assistants. The end users are served by universal voiceapplications that can process requests from voice assistant devices thatconform to any framework and formulate corresponding universal responsesthat can be translated to responses useable in any framework.

The other class of users includes platform participant users 45 who usethe platform in a software as a service mode, through user interfaces39, to create, store, and manage the universal voice applications andrelated items of content, among other things. The platform is configuredto enable the platform participant users to quickly create, store, andmanage standardized universal voice applications based on predefinedstandard items of content and other components needed for the voiceapplications. In other modes of use, the platform is configured toenable the platform participant users to create, store, manage, andcontrol customized universal voice applications and related items ofcontent, among other things.

The standardized universal voice applications, items of content, andother components can be stored on the platform servers 22. Thecustomized universal voice applications, items of content, and othercomponents can be stored on customization servers.

At run time, spoken requests (e.g., intents) 26 from end users arereceived by voice assistant devices 18, which process them and formulaterequest messages 341. The request messages 341 are passed through acommunication network 29 to voice assistant servers 31 operated, forexample, by parties that control particular frameworks (such as Amazonwith respect to the Alexa framework. The voice assistant servers processthe incoming messages, parse them to derive request message elements andpass the processed request information to the platform servers.

The platform servers use the received message elements to determine thebest response according to a given standardized or custom voiceapplication being executed. For that purpose, the platform servers canrefer to standard voice applications, items of content, and othercomponents stored and managed on the platform servers, or can refer tothe customization servers for customized voice applications, customizeditems of content, and other customized components. The platform serversformulate corresponding appropriate response message elements 35 andreturns them to the voice assistant servers, which use them to generateformal voice response messages 32. The responses 34 can be spoken orpresented in text, images, audio, or video. The platform stores items ofcontent 52 in various media formats for use in the responses. In somecases the responses could involve response actions such as turning offan appliance.

The three sets of servers (platform servers, customization servers, andvoice assistant servers) can be created, managed, operated, owned, orcontrolled (or combinations of those activities) respectively by threedifferent parties: (a) a platform host that operates the platform as abusiness venture, (b) the platform participants who control their owncustomization servers, and (c) framework developers (such as Microsoft,Amazon, Google, Apple, and developers of chatbots) who operate their ownvoice assistant servers to control the manner in which request andresponse messages for their frameworks are handled. In someimplementations, two or more of the three sets of servers could becontrolled by a single party for its own benefit or for the benefit ofitself and another party.

Because the platform is cloud-based (for example, is implemented usingone or more servers that communicate through communication networks withclient voice assistant devices), platform participants need not investin additional infrastructure to be able to create, edit, manage, and ownrobust voice applications. The cloud-based approach also enables regularupdates and enhancements to be added by the party that controls theuniversal voice application platform. The updates and enhancementsbecome available automatically and immediately to platform participants.

Examples of the platform participants mentioned above include brands,advertisers, developers, and other entities that use the platform.

In some examples, people who use the platform as representatives of oron behalf of platform participants are sometimes called “platformparticipant users”, “platform users” or “participant users.” Participantusers interact with the platform through one or more “participant userinterfaces” 39 or simply “user interfaces.”

As suggested earlier, some voice applications, which we sometimes call“standard voice applications” are designed, developed, and stored by theparty that controls the platform and made available openly for use byplatform participants. Some voice applications, which we call “customvoice applications” include custom items of content, custom features, orother custom components, and are designed, developed, stored, andcontrolled for particular purposes or by particular platformparticipants In some cases, these custom voice applications can beshared with other platform participants. In some instances, custom voiceapplications are proprietary to a single platform participant and arenot shared.

We use the term “voice application” broadly to include for example, anyapplication that can accept information about a request of a user of avoice assistant device and formulate elements of a response to therequest to be returned to the voice assistant device where the responseis to be implemented. A voice application can be created by any methodthat involves specifying how to accept and use the information about theincoming request and how to cause the elements of an appropriateresponse to be generated based on the information about the incomingrequest. The response can include items of content and the elements ofthe response can be generated by executing relevant defined functionsbased on the information about the incoming request. In typical knownsystems, a voice application is “hard wired” as code that accepts therequest as input and executes pre-specified methods or functions basedon the request to generate the response. Among the advantages of theplatform and user interface that we describe here are that they provideparticipant users an easy-to-use, robust, effective, time-saving, highlyflexible, cross-framework approach to developing, updating, controlling,maintaining, measuring the effectiveness of, and deploying voiceapplications and the items of content that they use. Fine-grainedcross-framework, cross-content, and cross-feature analytics are madeavailable to the users and also work in the background to improve theeffectiveness of the voice applications. The resulting applications arein turn robust, adaptable, dynamic, and effective, among other benefits.

The platform 12 is configured to be able to accept request messageelements that conform to any type of voice assistant framework, executeuniversal voice applications using those message elements, and returnuniversally expressed response message elements that can be used toformulate response messages for any type of voice assistant framework,

In other words, the universal voice application platform can communicatesimultaneously with voice assistant devices that belong to (e.g.,conform to) multiple different current and future voice assistantframeworks, using request messages and response messages for each of thevoice assistant devices conforming to the native protocols of itsframework. At the same time, the universal application platform enablesplatform participants to develop, maintain, and deploy robustuniversally applicable voice applications that can interpret requestsand formulate responses for voice assistant devices belonging to variousdifferent frameworks without having to develop, maintain, and deploymultiple parallel functionally similar voice applications, one for eachframework to be served.

Thus, among the benefits of some implementations of the platform,platform participants can formulate, maintain, and deploy engagingeffective robust voice applications through a single, easy-to-usecoherent participant user interface. The resulting voice applicationscan universally serve Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomePod,Microsoft Cortana, and any other kind of current or future voiceassistants and voice assistant devices. The platform is designed toenable a platform participant to deploy a voice application quickly andeasily while offering flexibility through customization capabilities.

Also among the features and advantages of the technology and theplatform are the following:

Graph based. The platform can interact with, provided services for, andprocess data associated with any voice assistant frameworks includingexisting proprietary frameworks developed by Amazon, Google, Apple,Microsoft, and others and non-proprietary frameworks, through a singleuniversal API and universal business logic layer. The platform abstractsreceived request messages and processes them to understand the endusers' requests (e.g., intents) using graph-based pattern matchingrather than a rules-based engine (although it may be possible to combinethe graph-based pattern matching with a rules-based approach). Thegraph-based pattern matching enables a consistent and confident approachto mapping request messages, across multiple voice assistant frameworks,to features to be used in formulated responses. The graph-based approachis manageable, updateable, and flexible enough to enable machinelearning to update positions of nodes in the graph. New voice assistantframeworks can be accommodated by the graph-based approach simply byadding a new node (data point) to the graph database to create aconnection reachable based on request messages received from voiceassistant devices that conform to the new voice assistant framework.Cross-framework analysis. Because the universal voice applicationplatform has access to usage data from multiple different voiceassistant frameworks, the platform can compare how frameworks performrelative to one another. For example, the platform can analyze failurerates of different voice applications in processing and responding toreceived request messages and failure rates of particular features oritems of content across multiple voice assistant frameworks. As aresult, the platform can use machine learning and platform algorithms tounderstand an end user's request (intent) better than the request mightbe understood by the specific voice assistant framework being used,which has access only to usage data for that framework. This advantageis achieved, for example, by detecting patterns of success and failurefor each framework for a given type of feature or content item anddetermining changes that would make the content item or feature moresuccessful. This analysis enables the platform to identify the bestsuperset of content item and feature variations across supportedframeworks.Robust content suggestions. Because the platform collects usage dataacross multiple voice assistant devices and multiple frameworks througha single API and can analyze their relative performances, the platformcan provide effective feature and content recommendations to platformparticipants. The platform uses machine learning and algorithms toreport to platform participants on the relative performances ofdifferent voice applications (including different voice applications ofa given platform participant or different voice applications ofdifferent platform participants) in order to make real-time dynamiccontent suggestions to platform users directly within the platform userinterfaces. These suggestions can help the platform users to optimizethe performance of their voice applications and enhance the overallend-user experience.Dynamic content. The platform supports sets of items of dynamic content,to provide, for example, more than one possible response to a request,such as alternative answers to a question. Dynamic content can enable amore engaging end-user experience because, for example, the responsescan change from session to session. Dynamic content also enables one ormore personas of voice assistants to be created and end-user experiencesto be altered depending on preferences and demographics of the endusers. In typical existing platforms, if ten end users ask a given voiceassistant the same question, the voice assistant will interact in thesame way all ten times. The universal voice application platform enablesformulating a potentially infinite variety of responses for each of theten end users and personalizing each response to the specific end user.For example, if the platform determined that the end user is a35-year-old female living in Georgia, then a particular response can bechosen based on a decision by the developer that such an end user may bemore comfortable talking to another female (the voice assistant) who hasa southern accent and who speaks using local colloquialisms and localreferences. The platform enables the developer to change the words thata given voice assistant framework uses when speaking to an end user andto record amateur or professional voice talent having relevant gender,accent, dialect, or other voice characteristics. The result is a moreauthentic and acceptable interaction between a given end user and avoice assistant.

Typically, the platform cannot “hear” the end-user's accent because therequest message does not carry an audio file from any of the voiceassistant frameworks. The platform only receive text and can look forkey words that give clues that the end user may have an accent. Anexample would be “y'all” in the text which could be attributable to asouthern United States accent. The platform also can coupleidentification of keywords with geographic information if available. Thekey word “y'all” received from voice assistant device in Atlanta Ga.could imply a southern accent.

Multilingual content. The platform natively supports multilingualcontent for responses enabling a platform participant to reach a largeraudience within the US and worldwide. The platform also enables moreinclusive and human experiences between end users and voice assistants.Multilingual support is built into the interface for non-Englishspeaking participant users along with the ability to add, modify, andremove multilingual content.Pre-stored and custom modules and content. The platform offers both (a)speed to market for brand owners or other platform participants usingpredefined (e.g., standard) features, modules of features, and samplecontent items, and (b) flexibility using customization or creation ofcustom of features, modules, and content items, among other things. Theplatform participant can use the standard features, modules, and contentitems 23 through an easy-to-use content management system to speeddevelopment or can create custom end-user experiences by creating theirown custom features, modules, and content items, among other things,that operate with the platform using APIs. This arrangement enablesplatform participants to create and manage customized and authenticend-user experiences to serve end users better.Human voice. Using a human voice for responses and not solely asynthesized computer voice yields a more authentic and engaging end-userexperience. The platform enables participant users to create and editaudio and video content items directly within the platform through theuser interface, without needing to resort to other off-platform contentcreation applications (although off-platform content creationapplications could also be used). A platform participant can create avoice application that takes advantage of and includes rich media (audioand video) content items through a single participant user interface.Among the advantages of this arrangement are greater efficiency andspeed to market and deeper, richer end-user experiences.Media guidance on capabilities of devices. Voice assistant frameworks(and voice assistant devices that conform to them) vary in how theyhandle various types of content items based on their internal hardwareand software. For example, one framework may support video, audio,images, and text while another may only support text and audio. Theuniversal voice application platform offers media guidance on whether aspecific type of content item is supported by specific voice assistantdevices or voice assistant frameworks and provides the guidance in realtime directly in the participant user interface of the platform. Thisguidance enables brands or other platform participants to determinewhich content to emphasize while learning how to optimize the end-userexperience on a specific voice assistant device or voice assistantframework.

As explained earlier, in some implementations of the technology that wedescribe here, the voice assistant devices 18 process speech 26 of endusers 28, interpret the speech as corresponding requests 48, incorporatethe requests (e.g., intents) in request messages expressed according tothe protocols of the voice assistant frameworks to which the voiceassistant devices belong, and forward the request messages through thecommunication network or networks to the server, which processes thereceived request messages. As also shown in FIG. 1, the serverformulates responses using relevant features 43 of voice applications14, and (in most cases) sends corresponding response messages back tothe voice assistant devices. The universal voice application platformincludes modules 46 that organize and provide features 43 to enable thevoice applications to handle the requests. In some implementations ofthe platform, such features of the modules are implemented as requesthandlers 41 that process a potentially wide variety of different typesof requests (e.g., intents) for the voice applications, for example,requests associated with features such as events, FAQs, daily updates,reminders, checklists, surveys and latest news.

The features that are implemented as request handlers in a given modulecan represent a bundle of features that all are useful with respect to acommon use case related, for example, to a set of platform participantsthat share common characteristics, such as entities that belong to anindustry or market. Each module can also contain or be associated withpre-stored items of sample content 23 that can be invoked by and used bythe request handlers in formulating responses to requests. Theavailability of pre-stored items of sample content can improve thespeed-to-market for platform participants.

Participant users (for example, people who are working on behalf ofparticular companies, brands, organizations, or other platformparticipants) can create, edit, and manage customized items of content22 through the platform's user interface using the platform's contentmanagement system 54. The content management system offers an intuitiveuser interface that does not require technical knowledge to create,modify, and remove items of content that shape end-user experiences.

The platform's content management system also provides guidance andinsight to participant users by collecting usage data and applyinganalytics 56 to the collected usage data 55. In the user interface,guidance can be provided by clues such as visual indicators for voiceassistant devices by media format of the content items 653 supported byparticular frameworks (e.g., video and image media supported by theAmazon Echo Show). Insights include, for example, analytics regardingthe success rate of a response formulated by a voice application for agiven request across voice assistant devices of different frameworks(e.g., Google Assistant successfully responds more to a given requestthan does Amazon Alexa).

As shown in FIG. 2, the universal voice application platform 12 uses anarchitecture 70 of independent functional layers. The layers include: anAPI layer 72, a business logic layer 74, a features and modules layer76, a CMS (content management system) layer 78, and a data layer 80.

API Layer

The API layer handles request messages 73 received from voice assistantdevices and requests 75 received from custom modules and features. TheAPI layer accepts request messages and other requests expressed inaccordance with protocols 82 associated with any possible proprietary ornon-proprietary voice assistant framework. When the API layer receives arequest message or other request that conforms to any of the definedprotocols, the API layer abstracts (e.g., translates, transforms, ormaps) the received request message or request into a request expressedin accordance with a common universal protocol 84 for furtherprocessing. This abstraction enables supporting a wide variety ofproprietary and non-proprietary voice assistant frameworks, voiceassistant devices, and voice assistants using universal business logicand other logic layers (such as the features and modules layer and theCMS layer) instead of requiring a separate stack of logic layers foreach voice assistant framework.

As an example, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant each provide requestmessages expressed in JSON to the API layer of the platform forprocessing. The protocol for expressing the request message is generallythe same regardless of the frameworks to which the voice assistantdevices conform but the object and value pairs contained in the requestmessage differ between the two different frameworks, supportedrespectively by Google or Amazon. For example, both platforms representa user and whether or not a session is new within JSON protocol; Thespecific key and value pairs for Google Assistant are “userid|UniqueNumber” and “type|New” whereas the specific keys for Alexa are“userid|GUID” and “new|True”. The platform detects which framework isassociated with a particular voice assistant device sending the requestmessage to determine how the request message should be processedfurther. The platform reconciles the differences and normalizes theinformation into a common format for additional processing.

Business Logic Layer

The business logic layer applies business logic to handle key operationsfor the platform related to mapping message elements of each of theincoming requests to a specific appropriate module and features that canand will handle the request. In some implementations, the business logiclayer performs the mapping by graph traversal using a graph database 86stored as one of the databases in the server. In some cases, the graphtraversal determines which module and feature most likely matches (e.g.,is most likely to process and formulate a response properly to) a givenrequest. The graph database contains data representing a graph of nodesconnected by edges. The graph traversal is a search technique that looksfor patterns within the graph database based on item relationships. Apattern represents edges within the graph that connect one or morenodes. For example, a request message from an Amazon Alexa device withthe literal phrase “stop” as one of the message elements will map to the“stop” feature node of the graph based on edge values of Alexa and thestop directive. Based on the results of the graph traversal, thebusiness logic layer processes the requests that have been expressed inan abstract universal protocol to identify the most likely matchingmodule and feature of the features and modules layer 76 of the universalvoice application platform.

Features and Modules Layer

The features 81 within the features and modules layer representfunctions or processes 83 that are invoked as a result of processing arequest in the voice API layer and the business logic layer. Forexample, a function to return a list of events expects message elementsparsed from a request message and received from the business logic layerto represent a date of an event or a type of event such as basketballgames or both. Features within the platform are segmented according totypes of requests to be processed. for example, all requests forinformation about events can be handled by a function of an eventsfeature 85 while all requests for the latest general update is handledby a function of a daily updates feature 87. Feature segmentation bytype of request provides a structured format for processing requests andhousing responses. The functions of each feature and items of contentthat are used by them can be stored and managed by the party thatcontrols the platform or participant users or both. Because features andmodules closely relate to and use items of content, the features andmodules layer is one of two layers (the other being the CMS layer) thatparticipant users can view and work with directly by name in the userinterface of the platform.

Modules 89 provide a structure for referring to or bundling sets 91 offeatures 81 that are commonly used by or relevant to a group of platformparticipants, for example, companies belonging to a given industry 95,or sets of features that are relevant to given use cases. More than onemodule can refer to or include in its bundle a given feature. Becausefeatures refer to and use items of content, a reference to a module anda feature of the module amounts to a reference to particular items ofcontent (e.g., pre-stored sample or standard items of content 23 hostedby the platform for use by platform participants). For example, a modulefor the higher education field and a module for the wellness industrymay both contain references to (e.g., bundle) the same events featurethe five but the use of the feature will be different based on items ofcontent (e.g., items of sample or standard content or customized itemsof content) loaded when that feature is invoked respectively by the twodifferent references in the two different modules. The higher educationevents module may formulate responses related to specific sports teamsor school departments; the wellness events module may formulateresponses for activities by city or office.

As discussed later, the universal voice application platform includes asearch engine that retrieves specific items of content when a feature isinvoked, by performing a content search against a search index. Forexample, an inbound request message that states “what's happening nextTuesday on campus?” is handled by the events feature searching againstthe index to return a list of events that are in the database having thevalue of the date of that Tuesday.

CMS Layer

The standard and custom items of content 23 are created, stored, andmanaged by participant users through a main part of the platform userinterface that exposes features and functions of the CMS layer 78. TheCMS layer also enables participant users to control management andaccess rights. The CMS layer is designed to be easy enough fornon-technical administrators to use. The CMS layer supports a variety offormats of items of content including: audio as .mp3, video as .mp4,images as .png, raw text, and text as SSML (Speech Synthesis MarkupLanguage), among others. For interoperability, the CMS layer offers itsown API 90 to support requests from external applications in addition tosupporting requests from the features and modules layer 76. For example,a platform participant may re-purpose items of content stored within theCMS layer for external voice apps and for other distribution channelssuch as for presentation through mobile apps. In the latter case, themobile app can retrieve items of content stored within the CMS layerthrough use of the API.

Data Layer

The data layer is the repository of data used by all layers, userinterfaces, and other functions of the platform. The data layer employsa variety of storage mechanisms 92 such as graph databases 101, filestorage 103, search indexes 105, and relational and non-relationaldatabase storage. The data layer houses data for at least the followingusers, mechanisms, and uses: participant users, system permissions,mappings for modules and features, items of content related to featuresand responses formulated by features, and usage data for analytics,among others.

Significant Aspects of the Technology and the Platform

Among significant aspects of the technology and the platform, includingits layers and the user interface, are the following, some of which havebeen mentioned earlier.

Support for a Variety of Voice Assistant Devices Using an API Layer

The API layer can process request messages from any type of voiceassistant device, including any voice assistant device that belongs toor complies with one or more voice assistant frameworks, such as thoseoffered by, for example, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, andothers. New or customized voice assistant devices, voice assistants, andvoice assistant frameworks developed in the future can be accommodatedin a consistent way. Thus, by using a single API Layer, a variety oftypes (frameworks) of voice assistant devices can be accommodatedwithout requiring development of entire distinct codebase sets forrespective frameworks.

Graph Database Technology to Map Sentence Structure to Features

Request messages received at the platform (e.g., at the API layer) carryinformation about speech of users of voice assistant devices that istypically expressed as parts of loosely structured sentence patterns. Animportant function of the platform (and in some implementations, of thebusiness logic layer of the platform) is to determine the correct ormost suitable or relevant or effective features (we sometimes call them“appropriate features”) that should be invoked for message elementscontained in a given request message, based on the information carriedin the loosely structured sentence patterns. Although graph databasetechnology is typically used to identify pattern matches for entityrelationships on large data sets of highly relational data, the platformhere uses graph database technology to identify pattern matches forloosely structured sentence patterns against defined functions. Forexample, graph databases are often used to determine relationshippatterns within large data sets for social networks. An individualrepresented by a node may have several relationships to otherindividuals and shared interests represented within the graph. Theplatform here leverages a graph database to match patterns on userrequest types to features within the platform. The graph enables workingwith a manageable data set.

Analytics Across Voice Assistant Frameworks

The platform can capture usage data within a single repository (e.g.,databases within the data layer) for voice applications used across avariety of voice assistant devices, voice assistants, and frameworks.Using the stored usage data, the platform can perform analytics andsupply the results to participant users and platform participants, forexample, about the overall performance of a voice application acrossmultiple types of devices or multiple frameworks and about theperformance of individual request and response interactions for aparticular voice application. At the voice application level, theplatform can perform and accumulate, store, and provide the results ofthe analytics covering metrics that include: number of voice applicationdownloads, number of voice application sessions, number of uniqueapplication sessions, length of average application session, the mostfrequent requests received, the average rate of successfully mappingrequests to features, and failures to successfully map requests tofeatures.

The usage data for each analytics metric can be segmented by the type ofvoice assistant, voice assistant device, or voice assistant framework,the date range, or a variety of other parameters.

API Layer and SDKs

As explained earlier and as shown in FIG. 3, voice assistant devices 98express the requests spoken 99 by end users as structured data (requestmessages) in accordance with native protocols of the voice assistantdevices. The native protocols may be determined by the frameworks withwhich the devices are associated. In some cases, the request messagesare expressed in accordance with generic protocols that apply to typesof voice assistant devices or frameworks that are not supported by theplatform.

In order for the API layer (identified as the voice experience API 110in FIG. 3) to be able to process request messages 73 that are expressedaccording to a particular protocol, the platform supports a set of SDKs112 for different programming languages, voice assistant devices, andvoice assistant frameworks.

The SDKs enable all types of voice assistant devices (conforming to anyframework) to access the API layer with ease. The SDKs provide thedeveloper or other platform participants with the expected format(protocol) for expressing communications with the platform. The SDKsinclude tools that enable a developer to define the characteristics ofprotocols for: authorizing and authenticating the voice assistantdevices to permit them to access the API layer in a manner to apply therequest messages in the expected format, authorizing a voice applicationregistered with the platform, formatting raw request messages as datastructures that conform to the applicable protocol for presentation tothe API layer, formatting responses received from the API as proper datastructures (response messages) according to the applicable protocolexpected by the target voice assistant device, assuring that requestmessages are applied to the correct version of the API after updatesroll out, and supporting multiple programming languages.

The platform SDKs can support common programming languages used tocreate skills, actions, extensions, and voice applications for varioustypes of voice assistant devices and frameworks such as: JavaScript andTypeScript, C#, Java and Kotlin, Swift, and Go, among others.

For types of voice assistant devices (frameworks) for which processesare not normally written in one of the supported programming languagesof the SDKs, the API layer can be accessed directly to enable developersto develop other SDKs or to present request messages directly to the APIlayer. The SDKs can be open sourced to help support members of thedevelopment community using programming languages outside the supportedSDKs by demonstrating the design patterns and code architecture thatfulfill requirements of native protocols of various frameworks andrequirements of the API layer.

Once an SDK forwards a request message from a voice assistant device tothe API layer, the API layer will map the message to the internaluniversal protocol of the platform. The API layer also will express aresponse 113 formulated by the feature servers 115 as a response message117 that conforms to a protocol accepted by the voice assistant devicethat sent the request. The SDK can then accept the formatted responsemessage from the API layer, validate the response message, and forwardit through the network to the voice assistant device. The voiceassistant device then renders or presents the response 119 (e.g., itemsof content carried in the response) to the end user. The presentation ofthe response could be by a reading of text contained in the response bythe native AI voice of the voice assistant device, by directly playingan audio file, by presenting a video file, among others, or acombination of them, if the voice assistant device supports those richerformats.

For example, a request message processed by an SDK for Amazon Alexa issent to the API layer for further processing. The API layer then mapsthe processed request to a normalized format (e.g., the common format).The normalized formatted request is then processed further usingmappings to a specific feature as explained further later. The responsereturned from a feature is then formatted as a response message in theproper framework format and sent back to the SDK for Amazon Alexa forpresentation as spoken text, audio, images, or video.

The availability of the SDKs does not, however, restrict the developeror other platform participant to use only features offered by theplatform to develop voice applications. If, for instance, the developerwants to provide response behavior that cannot be implemented by any ofthe available features, the developer can skip using the SDKs to sendincoming requests to the API layer and simply use the SDKs to implementexplicit responses to requests. This capability enables developers tomigrate to the platform by using existing skills and voice applicationexperience without having to start from scratch.

For types of voice assistant devices or frameworks that are notsupported by the platform, such as third party chatbots, non-mainstreamvoice assistants, and others, the developer can register the unsupportedtype of voice assistant device or framework in the platform's CMS layer.Doing this will generate a unique identifier of the voice assistantdevice or framework to enable better analytics tracking of types ofrequests from particular types of voice assistant devices or frameworksthat are working better than others or to get usage data for a giventype of voice assistant device or framework versus others.

Business Logic Layer Graph Traversal

In order to support different voice assistant devices, the businesslogic layer handles patterns of request message elements included inrequest messages provided by each kind of voice assistant device orframework. As shown in FIG. 3, to be able to handle request elements 107of request messages 108 from various types of voice assistant devices(voice assistant frameworks) 98 and map the patterns of the requestelements back to the appropriate features 115, the business logic layeruses traversal 117 of a graph database 116 of relations between thepatterns of request elements and features supported by the platform. Thegraph contains nodes for the request messages corresponding to eachvoice assistant device or framework and information about each featuresupported by the platform. The graph database can be searched startingat any node to find a match of the request elements to the appropriatefeature to use.

The traversal 117 of a graph database to match a request message and itsrequest elements to the appropriate feature includes at least thefollowing steps: API consumption, node endpoint search, graph traversal117, and output processing.

API Consumption

A preliminary step in finding an appropriate feature to apply informulating a response to a given request message is to create a RESTfulAPI 110 for the business logic layer having unique endpoints to consumerequest message elements of native request messages from voice assistantdevices associated with particular frameworks. Each unique endpoint inthe RESTful API is aware of the protocol of the request elementsincluded in message requests received from voice assistant devices thatconform to a particular framework. For example, an endpoint may exist toconsume the request elements included in request messages received fromthe Amazon Alexa SDK 112. A separate set of endpoints of the APIconsumes the types of request elements that the Google assistant SDK 112sends with in its request messages. RESTful (Representational StateTransfer) is a technical architecture style that leverages an API forcommunication between systems based on the Hyper Text Transfer protocol(HTTP).

These endpoints of the RESTful API enable tracking the request elementsthat conform to the protocols for each framework of voice assistantdevices, and offers a generic set of endpoints for a generic set ofrequest elements so that unregistered types (unsupported frameworks) ofvoice assistant devices or other applications also may interact with thefeatures supported by the platform.

By having a set of understood protocols that are associated withrespective different voice assistant frameworks and corresponding voiceassistant devices, as well as a generic set of protocols, the system cansearch for an appropriate set of nodes in the graph database formatching to find an appropriate feature to formulate the response to thereceived request.

Node Endpoint Search

Typically request elements of request messages from voice assistantdevices of a given framework can be broken down into relationships of ageneral type of request to internal request elements known as slots. (Aslot is an optional placeholder for values that are passed by an enduser in the form of a request. An example of a slot and a slot value isUS_City and Seattle. US_City is the slot and Seattle is the value.)Based on that kind of structure, a graph database of the relationshipsof the request elements to features can be built. The relationshipscaptured by such a graph database can include common types ofrelationships.

As shown in FIG. 4, a relationship between message elements (which insome contexts we refer to as intents) and a feature can be as simple asa type of message element 142 (intent 1) received from a type of voiceassistant (assistant 1) relating to a particular feature 140 or (FIG. 5)can be more complex, for example, message elements 142 from twodifferent assistants (assistant 1 and assistant 2) of different types(i.e., frameworks) of voice assistant device relating to the samefeature 140. Example types of message elements could be an Alexa eventsearch, which would share an edge 143 to the events feature node 140 inthe graph and an Alexa event location search which would also share anedge 145 to the events feature node 140. The edge descriptor of an edgefor a given message element to a given feature is “directs to”; themessage element is the parent node that is directed to the child featurenode.

As shown in FIG. 6, a relationship can be more complex if a type of slot150 can be shared by two different message elements 152, 154 originatedby a particular type 153 of voice assistant device and if each of thetwo message elements also has its own slot type 156, 158 not shared withthe other voice assistant device. Continuing the example of the messageelements of Alexa event search and Alexa event location search relatingto the events feature, these two different message elements 152, 154will have inner (i.e., shared) slots. Some of the slots 150 may beshared between the two different message elements while some slots 156,158 may not. Take, for example, a date type of slot and a location nametype of slot. The message element type Alexa event search will containboth date and location name slot types, while Alexa event locationsearch will only contain the location name slot type. The edgedescriptor 160 for a message element to a slot is “contains,” becausethe message element contains a slot or multiple slots.

As shown in FIG. 7, in a more complex example, a feature 702 can alsorelate to multiple types of message elements from different types ofvoice assistant devices and their contained slots. In the example of theAlexa event search type of message element (intent 1) being related tothe event feature 702, a voice assistant device other than Alexa(assistant 1), such as Google assistant (assistant 2), could have aframework that supports its own similar message element called Googleevents 701 (intent 1). Then the Google events node 701 in the graphwould share a direct edge 711 to the same events feature 702 to whichthe Alexa event search 703 and the Alexa event location 704 search alsoshare edges.

A node for a given message element can have edges that direct tomultiple different features. For this to work, however, there must be away to determine to which of the different features a given actualmessage element directs. The determination can be made, for example, ifthere are at two different slot types for the two different featuresthat each relate only to one of the two features.

As shown in FIG. 7, if a first message element 703 relates to a feature702 and has a slot type 706 shared with a second message element 704that also relates to the same feature 702 and if the first messageelement has another slot type 708 that is not shared with the secondmessage element, then the relationship 709 between the first messageelement 703 and the feature 702 that shares another message element 704having the same slot 706 is stronger than is the relationship 711between the second message element 704 and the feature 702. More detailon how this decision is made is discussed below with respect to graphtraversal.

Consider, for example, two platform-supported features: an eventsfeature and a daily messages feature. These two features formulateresponse messages that include different types of content items. Onetype of content item (for events) can be event information includingdates, times, location, event type, and description. The other type ofcontent item (for daily messages) could be audio or video messages to bebroadcast to a group of people according to a schedule. There are manydifferent types of request message elements that could relate to, thatis, share a direct-to edge with the nodes representing these twofeatures of the graph. There also are message elements that could directto either feature but not both. Both features can be active in a voiceapplication at a given time, so the only way to know which feature todirect to from a request message element is to look at the slots thatthe message element shares with each of the two features. For example,the Alexa what's new message element can direct either to the eventsfeature or to the daily messages feature. However, the Alexa what's newmessage element can contain multiple slot types such as date and personname slots. The date slot also shares an edge with both features, butthe person name slot only relates to the daily messages feature.Therefore, if a message element in a received request message is theAlexa what's new message element and the request message contains theperson name slot, then the relationship between this request message andthe daily messages feature is stronger than its relationship with theevents feature. On the other hand, if there are more slot relationshipsbetween a feature node and one intent node than there are to anotherintent node and a request comes to the graph without the slots relatedto the one intent node filled, then the other relationship of thefeature node to the other intent node is stronger. Within the sameexample, if a received request contained the Alexa what's new intent andonly had the date slot filled, then the intent would be directed to theevents feature.

Using these types of relationships, the graph database can include anysimple or complex combination of nodes, edges, features, and slots. Oncea request message is received through the API layer, the processing willbegin at the node in the graph that matches the type of the messageelements and will use the slot types included in the message elements todetermine the best path to the most applicable feature.

Graph Traversal

To find the most appropriate feature matching a message element, thetraversal begins at the node and included slot nodes found in theendpoint search step. The logic of the business logic layer uses a graphto find all features immediately connected by edges to that node. Asshown in FIG. 8, in the case of a simple relationship between a messageelement (intent 1) and a feature, the path traversed is one jump 190along a single edge to a single feature 192, which is then selected toformulate the response message elements.

For a more complicated graph relationship where the message element hasmultiple related features, the search process must consider the slotsrelated to the message element. If the message element includes only aslot related to a given feature type, then the traversal path willcontinue to the strongest relationship that includes the most slotrelationships. In the example above of the events and daily messagesfeatures that share Alexa what's new message element, if the requestmessage contains this message element as well as the date slot andperson name slot, then the traversal path would lead to the dailymessages feature which is the only feature node sharing an edge with theperson name and date slots while the events feature only shares an edgewith the date slot.

Message elements may relate to other message elements, even if therelated message elements contain data for types of message elements ofdifferent types of voice assistant devices. Tying these relationshipstogether can produce a stronger path to a selected feature. Thetraversal logic's goal is to determine a shortest path to the feature.If two features are the same number of edges away from (i.e., have thesame path length to) the message element node, then the traversed pathmust lead to the feature with the strongest relationship, that is, knownas the feature with the most connected short edges. For example, theAlexa event search message element could, instead of directing to theevents feature, share an edge with the Google events message element.The Google Events message element could then have a direct-to edge tothe events feature. The edge descriptor for the relationship between theAlexa Event Search message element and the Google Events message elementwould be called “relates to.” Then the traversal path from the Alexaevent search to the events feature be: Alexa event search relates toGoogle Events which directs to events.

Complex Graph Traversal

As shown in FIG. 9, a more complex example graph 300 includes multiplemessage elements carried in request messages from multiple types ofvoice assistant devices (corresponding to various frameworks) andmultiple features. A few of the message elements can each map and relateback to multiple features. Traversal from the Alexa speaker searchintent node 302 can end up at the FAQ feature node 304 or at the eventsfeature node 306 depending on which slot values are filled (i.e., havevalues) based on the message elements of the request message.

For example, if the message element is expressed as the Alexa speakersearch intent 302 and the person name slot 308 value is filled, thetraversal would follow path 314 to the Alexa person information intent310 and then to the FAQ feature 304.

On the other hand, if a message element is expressed as the Alexaspeaker search intent 302, but instead of the person name slot valuebeing filled, the event type slot is filled, then the traversal wouldfollow a path 312 to the events feature 306 by way of the Alexa eventlocation search intent 316 and the Alexa event search intent 318 withwhich it shares edges.

Similar traversal path analyses apply to traversal paths from Googleevents 320, Google place information 322, Google general search 324, andAlexa general search 326 message elements to the events feature 306 andthe FAQ feature 304.

Note that each of the two features 304 and 306 can be reached by andformulate response message elements to respond to request messageelements received from voice assistant devices that conform to twodifferent frameworks (Amazon's and Google's).

Output Processing

After the appropriate matching feature is found by graph traversal, thebusiness logic layer next formulates data structures for the messageelements to fit the feature. Once data structures are formulated in ausable way for the feature, the platform will invoke the feature usingthe structured data, formulate a formal response message conforming tothe appropriate protocol and send the response message derived from thefeature to the originating voice assistant device. This process mayinclude a reverse mapping of the data structure returned by the featureto the formal response message.

Managing Unfound Nodes and Confidence Scoring

If the search for the appropriate node at which the traversal pathshould begin turns up no node matching the message element of thereceived request message, the platform will return a response message tothe originating voice assistant device through the API layer that therequest is not valid or not supported.

In addition to the simple not-found case, the number of edges to get tothe appropriate feature from the initial message element may be too manyfor the traversed path to be logically considered to have reached anappropriate choice of feature. The number of edges to be traversed toreach the feature can be treated as a traversal path's so-called“confidence score.” The threshold of the confidence score beyond whichthe resulting feature will be not be considered an appropriate choiceand the request will be considered bad or unsupported can beconfigurable. For example, if the confidence score threshold is set to10 edges, then a message element that requires traversal of only oneedge could have a confidence score of 100%, traversal of five edgescould have a confidence score of 50%, and traversal of ten edges couldhave a confidence score of 0%. Any request that exceeds or equals theconfidence threshold will be considered invalid.

Features and Modules Layer

The platform supports features that can formulate responses to requestmessages and in that way assist end-users who are interacting with voiceassistant devices. In effect, an end user can trigger a feature toformulate a response by speech that is interpreted by the naturallanguage processor of the voice assistant device into a message elementthat represents an intention of the end user. The intention could be,for example, to have a question answered or to have an action performedsuch as turning on a light. The message element is sent in a requestmessage to the API layer for mapping by the business logic layer to aspecific feature. The feature processes the intent and generates aresponse as explained earlier.

A feature is a collection of one or more functional methods that canperform one or more of a variety of actions, such as retrieving data,sending data, invoking other functional methods, and formulating aresponse to a request message, to be returned to the originating voiceassistant device.

An example of such a feature is the events feature mentioned earlier. Auser may speak to a voice assistant device to ask a question such as“Are there any wellness events in the Seattle office tomorrow?”. Thequestion is sent as a message element (intent) in a request message fromthe voice assistant device to the platform. At the platform, the eventsfeature parses the words and other parameters of the message element anduses the parsed words and other parameters to retrieve from the platformdatabase (or from a Web service call to a customization server) a listof actual events, based in some cases on a direct mapping of the wordsand other parameters to a database query or on business logic.

Each feature takes advantage of a wide range of data inputs and custombusiness logic to generate the response. In terms of the previouslydiscussed event feature example, the event feature can be configured toexpect a message element (e.g., a question) having values for any numberof placeholder parameters (e.g., slots). The event feature parses thequestion to extract the placeholder parameter values for furtherprocessing of the question. The processing can apply the parsedparameter values against a search index, the database, custom businesslogic, or a customization server, to obtain one or more values ofparameters that characterize one or more answers to the question. Theresponse formulated by the event feature can express the answer to thequestion using a combination of items of content including one or moreof: text, image, video, or audio. The items of content are incorporatedas message elements in the formulated response message to be returned tothe originating voice assistant device. Based on the message elementscontained in the formulated response message, the voice assistant at thevoice assistant device may speak a text response or play an audio orvideo clip along with an image (if the device supports images andvideo).

The execution patterns supported by features enable, for example, anevent feature to process vastly different message elements of requestmessages using the same methods and processes (represented by theexecution patterns). For example, an end user can ask “When is thefootball team playing next?” or “What's happening at the TD Garden?” andthe corresponding message element of the request message can be handledby the same execution pattern of the event feature. The event featurelooks for the pattern of event type or time frame to search forcorresponding items. In the examples above the event type equates thevalues “football team” and “TD Garden” to event type and venue. The word“next” in the end user's question implies a search for future events.The statement “What's happening at the TD Garden?” does not include atime frame and the feature handles the statement by default as aquestion about future events.

In addition, a given feature can support industry-specific uses. Forthat reason, the platform supports modules, each of which bundles one ormore features containing execution patterns and items of content (suchas sample items of content) for participant users. The features bundledin a given module will generally have a relationship to one anotherbased on an industry (or some other logical foundation). In someimplementations, within the code stack of the platform, a module isexpressed as a container that references specific features and items ofcontent. As exposed to a participant user through the user interface ofthe platform, a module contains features and items of content needed tocreate, manage, update, and implement a voice experience for end users.

Feature Handling

Examples of methods executed by a feature are an events handler and anFAQ handler. A user might ask the voice assistant a question such as“are there any wellness events in the Seattle office tomorrow?” The FAQfeature parses the message elements in the corresponding request messageand, based on them, retrieves a list of events using the database,custom business logic, or a response from a custom web service call.

The breakdown of the business logic used by the business logic layer tohandle the message elements of a request message falls into three majorsteps: feature location search and discovery, feature server request,and response handling.

At the end of this process, the response message is sent to theoriginating voice assistant device

Feature Location Discovery

As shown in FIG. 10, when the voice experience server 110 receives arequest message from the voice assistant device 521 and parses themessage elements in the request message, the server sends a request 523for a graph traversal. Once the graph has been traversed 501 forsupported types of voice assistant devices, the features and moduleslayer is aware of the type of feature 527 represented by the messageelements of the request message. The feature type can be represented bya unique identifier such as a GUID, a UUID, or a key-word. With thisunique ID, the features and modules layer can search 502 a featuredatabase 504 to find the full information (including the executionpattern and other information) defining the feature. Once the featuresand modules layer has information about the feature, it can find where agiven voice application has registered this feature. The registration ormetadata about the feature can exist on a server 505 that is either orboth of an internal, managed server of the platform, or a customizationserver controlled by the platform participant. Each of these servers canbe scaled independently from the platform to appropriately handle thefluctuation of lookup requests it needs to process separately from anyother feature server.

For example, if traversal of the graph 501 leads to a selection of theevents feature, this feature type (in this case, the feature type“events”) would have a unique identifier such asa592a403-16ff-469a-8e91-dec68f5513b5. Using this identifier, a processof the features and layers module will search against a featuremanagement database 504 such as a PostgreSQL database. This databasecontains a table having a record of the events feature type, the relatedvoice application, and the feature server location that this voiceapplication has selected to use for the events feature. This featureserver location record contains a URL for the location of the server 505such as https://events-featture.voicify.com/api/eventSearch as well asthe expected HTTP method that the feature server accepts such as HTTPGET. This feature server location record does not have to contain a URLmanaged by the platform. This server location can be external byimplementing a custom feature such ashttps://thirdpartywebsite.com/api/eventSearch.

Once the platform has found the appropriate feature server 505 it sendsa service request 529 for the feature server 505 to execute the featuretype using the parameters derived from the message elements of therequest message and waits for a response 499.

Feature Server Request

Once the feature server 505 is found, a service request is sent to it bycreating an HTTP request containing HTTP headers to identify that therequest is coming from the features and modules layer of the platformand an HTTP body that contains words and parameters parsed from themessage elements of the request message from the voice assistant deviceand is expressed according to a corresponding feature request protocol.This service request is then processed on the feature server, forexample, by using the words and parameters from the message elements tosearch for matching content items. Results of the search are returned tothe features and modules layer expressed according to the serviceresponse protocol defined for that feature.

Each feature defines a feature request protocol and a feature responseprotocol. These protocols define the format and structure of servicerequests and service responses used to send and receive responses andrequests to and from the feature server. The feature request and featureresponse protocols define rigid formatting requirements. FIGS. 11A and11B are an example of a JSON version of a feature request protocol andFIG. 12 is an example of a JSON version of a feature response protocol.By defining strict feature request and feature response protocols, theplatform can be confident that the feature server will be able toappropriately handle each feature request and provide a proper featureresponse that the features and modules layer of the platform can processproperly. This structure also enables customizing feature servers builtinto the platform to enable developers to create their own customizationfeature servers to handle requests and responses for a given type offeature.

The general structure of a feature request protocol includes informationabout the feature that is the subject of the service request, thecontent of the service request, and information about the messageelements included in the message request from the voice assistant devicethat were used to traverse the graph to find the feature. The structurealso enables feature servers, whether managed by the host of theplatform or created as customization feature servers on behalf ofplatform participants, to handle requests and responses as they areprocessed by or from the voice assistant devices natively. This enablesthe custom and platform feature servers to exercise the full power ofthe framework API of each type of voice assistant device.

For example, when sending a service request to an events feature server,whether internally managed in the platform or managed at a third-partyserver, the feature and modules layer will send an HTTP request with theheaders listed below as well as the HTTP Body of the example featurerequest protocol in FIGS. 11A and 11B: -Authorization:1d91e3e1-f3de-4028-ba19-47bd4526ca94; -Application:2e1541dd-716f-4369-b22f-b9f6f1fa2c6d

The -authorization header value is a unique identifier that isautomatically generated by and is unique to the voice application andthe feature type. This value can be re-generated by the platformparticipant to enable the feature server to ensure that the request isnot coming from a malicious third party. The -Application Header valueis the unique identifier for the voice application to enable the featureserver to validate that the request is coming from an authorized voiceapplication.

Response Handling

Once the feature server 505 has finished processing a feature servicerequest, it needs to return data expressed according to the featureresponse protocol. The feature service response 499 contains informationabout the items of content that were found by the feature server and cancontain information about rich media items of content for voiceassistant devices capable of presenting richer content items. Thefeature service response can include URL pointers to the file locationsof, for example, images, videos, or audio files. The data included inthe feature service response is validated by the features and moduleslayer to ensure the conformity to the service response protocol and thatthe data contains valid information.

If there are errors in the validation of the feature service response orif the original feature service request times out or is invalid, anerror response message is sent to the voice assistant device for theoriginal request message received by the API layer.

If the feature server returns a successful feature service response thatpasses validation, then the feature service response 519 is processed bythe features and modules layer of the voice experience layer 110 toformulate a response message to be sent to the voice assistant device.This process involves mapping the feature service response to theprotocol of the framework of the voice assistant device 521 includingmapping media files and other items of content to the appropriate form.If the voice assistant device supports richer media item formats such asvideo, then this process will prioritize the richer media items.Otherwise the process will fall back to simple text content to be spokenor read by the voice assistant to the end user, for example, if there isno rich media included in the response. Using the message elementsincluded in the response message, the originating voice assistant devicewill be able to render or present the response to the end user. If theoriginal request message came from a generic or unsupported AI device orvoice assistant device, then a generic response message that containsraw versions of the items of content from the feature service responsewill be returned to enable the unsupported AI device or voice assistantdevice to itself determine whether and how to use or the render eachitem of content.

For example, if the voice assistant device that originated the requestsupports rendering richer content other than just voice, such as imagesor video (as the Amazon Echo Show does), then the response formulationprocess of the features and modules layer will map the URLs contained inthe feature service response for rich media items and to rich mediaproperties in the message elements of the message response conforming tothe framework protocol of the voice assistant device. Certain featurescan enable the voice assistant device to present multiple types of mediaitems at the same time such as images and text while also reading ananswer to the end user. The business logic layer of the platform will beaware of the configurations of supported voice assistant devices inorder to formulate the response message according to the most optimalconfigurations. For voice assistant devices that do not support richmedia items, the default behavior of the features and modules layer willbe to formulate the message elements of the response message as a voiceresponse causing the voice assistant device to speak the text sent to itin the response message.

For example, if the request message were to come from a voice assistantdevice such as the Echo Show that supports images and text, the featureservice response provided to the events feature may be as shown in FIG.13. The feature service response shown in the example of FIG. 13 enablesthe results in the text response to be both spoken and shown visually inthe card field of voice assistant device and also maps the image URLs tothe proper card image URLs in accordance with the Alexa response messageprotocol.

Now take the same example feature response, but assume the voiceassistant device that made the request is an Alexa Echo Dot, which doesnot support presentation of visual items of content. The Alexa responseprotocol could be, more simply:

{

-   -   version: string,    -   sessionAttributes: {    -   key: value    -   },    -   response: {    -   outputSpeech: {    -   type: PlainText,    -   text: The Football game is at 3:00 pm at the Stadium today    -   },    -   shouldEndSession: true    -   }        }

This example only maps the text from the feature response to the text ofthe outputSpeech property of the Alexa protocol which in turn is spokenby the Alexa Echo Dot to the user.

Feature Content Search

When a feature processes message elements of a request message routed toit as a result of graph traversal, the processes of the feature mustsearch for the content items to include in the response as illustratedin FIG. 14. The feature server 505 is responsible for finding andincluding content items that are relevant based on the feature servicerequest. In some implementations, the feature server searches forcontent items 510 within a search index 511 of managed content itemsauthored or otherwise controlled by other platform participants. Thecontent search index 511 provides an efficient repository based onstructured content items for the feature server to query. Identificationof content items returned in the search results are either of contentitems that exactly match the query, or are most likely matches based ona search confidence, or include no content items based on zero returnedcontent items or a low confidence score for returned items.

There are two key aspects that enable the feature server to return theproper content items: content indexing 512 and content search 531.Content indexing and content search work together to create contentitems in the content database 504 that are searchable by the featureserver 505 to provide content items to the features and modules layerfor use in formulating the response to the voice assistant device.

Content Indexing

As stored in the database of the platform, each item of content hascertain fields and properties that contain simple information such astext content, identifiers, URLs, and others that are easily searchablewhen put into an elastic search index 511. In order to improveperformance of the feature server, all content items that are reachableby the feature process should be added to the elastic search index 511.Certain content items used by the features may have one or moreparticular properties that are treated as more valuable in the index andweight can be added to those properties in the fields of the index. Theweighting enables the elastic search index to prioritize searchesagainst the fields in a descending order of the weights of the fields.The weighting results in a score when a search against the index hasmultiple hits on different fields of a given item of content.

For example, if an event content item has the following fields, theindicated weight values (on a scale of 1-5) can be associated with them:event name—4, event location—2, event start date/time—5, event enddate/time—1, event details—2, and event summary—2.

This weighting would prioritize searching against the start date/time ofthe event and the name of the event. Therefore, if there are two eventswith similar descriptions but different start times and the requestcontains a particular date to search against such as tomorrow or March3rd, then the top result will be the event content item that has thestart date and time that matches that date request. If there are twoevents happening at the same time, then the next field against which thesearch is prioritized is the name. For example, if there are two eventswith the same start date: 5/2/2018 3:00 PM, but one has the name of“basketball game” and the other is “hockey game,” then the search for amessage element such as “What time is the hockey game on May 2^(nd)?”would find the second event with the name hockey game as the top resultand return that instead of the basketball game event.

Content items are added, updated, and removed from this elastics searchindex automatically when a participant user updates the item of contentusing the content management system 513. If a participant user deletes acontent item by marking it as removed in the database (or deleting italtogether), a content indexer process 512 will remove that content itemfrom each elastic search index that contains the content item. Likewiseif a participant user updates properties of a content item or adds a newitem of content, those items 535 are updated 533 or added to the elasticsearch index. The index can also be manually flushed or reset. Doingthis will force the content indexer process to rebuild the index byquerying the database 504 for content items that should be indexed andthen uses that data to rehydrate the index and cache.

For example, suppose a platform participant adds a new content item forthe events feature having the following properties and values: eventname: basketball game, event location: gymnasium, event start date/time:May 2nd, 3:00 PM, event end date/time: May 2nd, 5:30 PM, event details:The Rams play against the Lions for the 3rd time this year, eventsummary: Tickets start at $15 and the doors open at 1 PM! Buy somemerchandise to support your team!

Once a participant user marks a content item as live or publishes anevent, the content item is immediately added to the elastic search indexand the event is available to be found in a search by the feature server505 on behalf of the events feature. Suppose a participant user goesback to the content item in the CMS and updates a property such as:event location: Gymnasium at 100 Main Street. The update process wouldupdate the record for the content item in the database and also updatethe content item in the elastic search index. Suppose a disconnecthappens from the voice experience server 110 or the content managementsystem 513 to the elastic search index 511 that can cause adesynchronization, such as the elastic search index going down formaintenance. Then when the connection is restored the elastic searchindex would be flushed, that is, all content items in the index will beremoved. Once this is done, the indexing processor 512 will communicatebetween the database 504 and the elastic search index 511 to re-add allappropriate content items. Lastly, if the participant user were toremove the basketball game event from the CMS, then the event would bemarked as removed in the database and deleted completely from the indexto ensure that it wouldn't be found by any feature servers.

Content Search

Once a content item is added to the database and to the elastic searchindex by the content indexer, the item is ready to be found in a searchby the feature server. If the index is not hydrated (has no data) due toan active flush of the cache and index or for any other reason, thefeature server 505 will fall back to querying a content database 504directly using traditional fuzzy search techniques 514. The fuzzy searchproduces lower confidence results for content items but ensures thatcontent items are reachable when updates are being made to the system orif the index 511 becomes corrupt. In some implementations, the contentdatabase is a relational database 504 that contains information that ismanaged in the content management system 513 including information aboutfeatures a given voice application has enabled and includes items ofcontent.

When the index is populated and reachable, the feature server willexecute a search against the index. Primary filters can enable fastersearching such as searching only for content items that match thefeature type that the feature server represents. This enforces the rulethat a given feature server will not return content items associatedwith another feature. Searches against the index will return acollection of results that match the search request. If there are nomatches, then the message element of the request message cannot besuccessfully processed and an appropriate response message will bereturned to the voice experience server from the feature server toexplain that the feature server is unsure what to do with the messageelement. When a single item of content is found in the search, alsoknown as an exact match, then that one item of content will be returnedas the message element of the response to the voice experience server.If many items of content are found to match the message element, thenthe item of content with the highest score based on the weights of thefields searched will be returned as the message element to be includedin the response message.

In the example above involving the basketball game and the hockey gameevents, the total potential score for a perfect match would be the sumof the weights of all indexable fields: 16. If a feature service requestbeing handled by the feature server contains information about the startdate/time and the name and nothing else, the maximum achievable score is9. If the search query includes the same start time for both events andthe name of hockey game, then the score for basketball game would be 5and the score for hockey game would be 9, and the hockey game eventinformation would be returned as the message element to be included inthe response message to be sent to the voice assistant device.

Feature and Module Customization

The platform enables platform participants to create custom modules inaddition to the platform's standard supported and managed modules. Whenbuilding a custom module, a participant user can select registeredfeature types to add to the module. The platform also enables developersto create custom feature servers that override the supported featureservers during the execution a voice application.

There are two aspects to customizing the way content items are retrievedand managed in the context of customization: custom modules and customfeatures.

Custom modules are non-technical elements and require no separatedevelopment or maintenance by the platform participant, while customfeatures require a developer to create and maintain a web server thatthe platform can communicate with to use the custom modules and causethe execution of the custom features.

Creating a Custom Module

At a high level, a module 508 is a collection of features 509 andcontextualized content items 510 within those features as shown in FIG.15. As an example, the platform can be pre-configured to include a setof industry modules such as a higher education module or an employeewellness module as shown in FIG. 16. When adding any of these modules515 to a voice application 507, the platform can pre-populate thefeatures 516, 541 of the module with sample (e.g., standard) items ofcontent 517 that the platform participant 506 can use, update, or removeto replace with their own items of content. The pre-populated (e.g.,standard or sample) features 516, 541 could include frequently askedquestions, quick poll, and survey, as examples. The platform maintainsand hosts the pre-populated modules 515; however, platform participantsare not limited to these pre-populated modules and their features. If aplatform participant wishes to mix and match features of differentmodules or wants to create a set of features having a different contextthan the existing modules enable, the platform participant can createone or more custom modules as shown in FIG. 17.

A custom module 518 must be given a unique name within the context ofthe voice application to which it belongs. Platform users can also givedescriptions to their modules to help solidify the context being createdfor its features and items of content. When a developer creates a modulewith a unique name it is registered within the platform. Once theplatform participant has created the module by unique name, the ownercan begin to add features to it. The features can be pre-existing (e.g.,standard or sample) platform-supported features 516 or custom features520. If an added feature is a pre-existing feature 516, the owner canthen start adding content items to the feature within the custom module518.

In addition to creating a new custom module from scratch, a platformparticipant can also add an existing (e.g., standard or sample) industrymodule to a voice application and adjust the features within it byadding features, removing features, or using a custom features in placeof or in addition to pre-existing features to form a customized module519 as shown in FIG. 18. Adding features to an industry module will notpopulate content items within the feature as is the case with thepre-existing features. For example, if the voice application alreadyuses the employee wellness module and a participant user wants to addanother feature to the module that isn't included or that was removedpreviously, the participant user can, through the user interface of theplatform, view the remaining supported feature types that have notalready been added and can add the desired feature to the module. Theparticipant user then can choose whether to use the pre-existing featureimplementation or register a custom feature from a third party or acustom feature that the participant user has developed on its own.

Creating a Custom Feature

Platform features are implemented by a combination of a feature serverand the feature type it represents. A feature type defines an expectedfeature request protocol, a feature response protocol, and the locationof a feature server to which to send HTTP calls when the feature type isidentified as the appropriate feature found during graph traversal. Thisstructure applies both to supported, managed features and to customfeatures that are created to extend the platform. Platform participantsmay want to do this if they have pre-existing content items stored otherthan in platform databases or content items that are managed by anothersystem, if their security standards do not enable content items to bemanaged by an external system such as the platform, or if they want toenhance or change the functionality or behavior of the platform.

If a platform participant wants to create a custom feature, theparticipant can create a publicly accessible web server (as a customfeature server). The customization feature server has an HTTP endpointthat accepts the expected feature service request expressed inaccordance with the protocol, in the HTTP body and returns the expectedfeature service response expressed in accordance with the protocol. Insome implementations, this endpoint must return the feature serviceresponse within a restricted timeframe to ensure that the experience forthe end user is not degraded by slow performance outside the control ofthe platform.

Custom feature servers can use the data from the feature service requestin any way as long as an expected feature service response is returned.The custom feature servers can use message elements of the originalrequest message from the voice assistant device, track any internalanalytics, break apart the message elements of the request message, andprovide functionality that is unique to the voice assistant device orthe voice application that sent the request message. As shown in FIG.19, for example, if a platform participant already manages its eventinformation using a third-party service and doesn't want to migrate thatdata to the platform, the participant can instead develop a customevents feature server 521 to replace the default (supported) eventsfeature server 555. However, this custom events feature server 521 mustaccept feature service requests expressed in accordance with the sameprotocol as the platform's events feature server 555 and return featureservice responses expressed according to the same output protocol as theplatform's server. Once the developer has created this publiclyaccessible custom events feature server, the developer can update thevoice application in the CMS to change the feature server location tothe custom event feature server's URL.

Every custom feature server must be of an existing feature type. This isrequired for the platform to know to send the feature service request tothe proper feature server. As shown in FIG. 20, however, a featureserver can also be registered as a custom fall back feature server 523so that, for the given voice application, if a request from a voiceassistant device cannot be matched to a feature type that is registeredto the voice application, the feature service request 524 can be sent tothe fall back custom feature server 523. This arrangement enables fullcustomization of how responses are handled such as creating a voiceapplication including a custom module with no other features but a fallback custom feature. As shown in FIG. 21, then all feature servicerequests 525 would be forwarded to the custom feature server 523 whichcan be designed to handle all message elements of response messagesitself without using any platform-supported features 526. These types ofcustom features still require that the feature service response returnedto the voice experience server match the protocol of the expectedfeature service response for the fall back type. The feature servicerequest for this case can include the message element of the originalmessage request from the voice assistant device and the information thatthe message element is attempting to pull such as the feature type itmost closely matches. As shown in FIG. 21, the process executes this wayeven if that feature type is not registered in the voice application.

For example, if a given voice application does not have the eventsfeature enabled in any of its modules, but a request message comes tothe voice experience server that includes a message element for theAlexa event search, the graph traversal will not be able to find amatching feature because the appropriate match is the events feature. Ifthe voice application has registered a custom fallback feature, then theprocess would skip the graph traversal step and instead find thefallback feature server information from the content database and sendthe original native Alexa event search message element to the customfallback feature server. The custom feature server can then apply anydesired processing to the raw Alexa event search message element andreturn a structured feature service response that is specific to thefallback feature type. If there are no registered features other thanthis custom fallback feature server, then the graph traversal wouldalways be skipped in favor of proceeding directly to the custom featureserver.

Content Management Layer

Interactions between a voice assistant and an end user are provided by avoice application and take shape based on content items managed by theplatform. The platform enables participant users to create, modify, anddelete content items used by features as needed. These participant userscan work with content items based on a feature through the userinterface of the platform using a web browser or mobile device. Asdiscussed earlier, a feature can be implemented as a handler for aspecific type of message element such as a request for information aboutan event. A feature also provides a consistent structure for addingitems of content based on protocols defined by the platform.

For example, an event feature can include the following properties:event name, event location, event start date/time, event end date/time,event details, and event summary, among others. With respect to such afeature, a participant user simply adds, modifies, or removesinformation 622 (FIG. 22) about events using fields presented within theplatform's user interface. The items of content for the feature areadded to a search index that is queried when an end user of a voiceassistant device poses an event-specific question.

As shown in FIG. 23, a participant user can manage the items of contentof a voice application for all selected feature types within a givenmodule (whether a platform-hosted module or a custom module) using thecontent management system user interface 611. In addition, a participantuser can view cross-device (e.g., cross-framework) analytics 612 basedon usage data of a given voice application across multiple frameworks ofvoice assistant devices, because the universal voice applicationplatform can process request messages from all such voice assistantdevices.

For purposes of adding items of content, the user interface sendscontent management requests to an API of the CMS using HTTP. The CMS APIthen manages where to store the items of content. Content items caninclude text or media assets such as audio in mp3 format or videos inmp4 format. Content items in the form of media assets are uploaded to ablob storage or file management system, and meta data and relatedcontent items are stored in a relational database that is scalable.

The CMS API is not exclusively for content items that are related tofeature types, but also enables participant users to manage theiraccounts, voice applications, modules, features, and other aspects ofthe platform including registering custom modules and custom features.Each item of content is structured specifically for the correspondingfeature type in that the properties and fields of items of contentuniformly conform to a common protocol for expressing items of contentfor any given feature type. Each content item also is related to aspecific voice application to prevent platform participants other thanthe appropriate platform participant to have access to a voiceapplication view in the user interface or to use the content items ofthe owner. Although a given feature type can be used across multiplemodules, feature content items are directly associated with the modulesthat manage them. For example, a feature content item value thatrepresents the answer to a frequently asked question and is the same fortwo modules is stored in the database twice.

Support and Guidance from the CMS

Voice assistant devices vary in how they handle items of content basedon their internal hardware and software. One voice assistant device maysupport video, audio, images, and text while another may only supporttext and audio. The CMS can provide guidance and real-time feedbackregarding content items added by participant users. For example, asshown in FIG. 24, a participant user may enter a text content itemrelated to an event in addition to an audio file and an image alsorelated to the event 652. The CMS interface will indicate the types ofvoice assistant devices that support the submitted type of content item651, 661 (FIG. 26).

Participant users who choose to include audio or video as part of amessage element of a response message can produce the content itemdirectly within the CMS through the user interface of the platform 641.Therefore, as shown in FIGS. 24 and 25, the platform enables platformusers both to produce and to manage multiple types of content items inone place 642.

Questions and Answers

The platform is designed to store and provide different phrases andsentences that voice assistant devices can speak, for example, to answerquestions of an end user. The alternatives are stored as question andanswer sets. As shown in FIG. 22, the CMS interface enables platformusers to create collections of questions 621 and answers 623.

Full Multilingual Support

The platform fully supports multilingual content within the voicecontent management system interface and voice interactions. Since thevoice content management system interface supports multiple languages,the interface is accessible to non-English platform users in theirnative languages. In some implementations, the platform can support theability to publish non-English content. To make such an approach useful,instructions and prompts within the interface would also need to beprovided in the platform user's native language.

The platform supports multilingual content for voice interactions fromthe data layer up through the final response messages to the voiceassistant devices based on the data model that represents a given itemof content. All content items within the platform inherit an object thatcontains properties for language and version. Therefore, any contentitem in the system can have corresponding items in other languages. Forexample, a question in the voice content management system that states“How large is the student body” with a language value of EN-US can haveequivalent entries in Spanish and French with language values of ES-ESand FR-FR.

Analytics

Analytics processes of the platform can analyze usage data representingmany different aspects of the operation of the platform and process thislarge amount of information to provide participant users insight intothe performance of their items of content 624, features, modules, andvoice applications. As shown in FIGS. 27 and 28, the data analytics caninclude measurements made across different types (frameworks) of voiceassistant devices 671, 681, and different specific voice assistantdevices that are the sources of the original request messages,measurements of the types of features that message elements of therequest invoke 672, and comparisons of the performances of respectiveitems of content that are used by a given feature. These types ofanalytics are separate from the analytics that the platform itselfconsumes to determine the performance of components, aspects, and theentire platform.

Among the key kinds of analytics provided by the platform are dataaggregation, data analysis and processing, key performance indicators,and intelligent rendering.

Data Aggregation

Analyzing the performance of items of content is vital to enablingplatform participants to create good voice experiences for end users ofvoice assistant devices. There are points in the data flow where rawdata can be analyzed especially effectively for this purpose. Theplatform applies machine learning approaches to the raw data to classifydata into buckets and compare large amounts of the data that aggregateover time.

Among the types of data that the platform analyses are each of thefollowing (and combinations of two or more of them): the type (e.g.,framework) of voice assistant from which a request message originated(e.g., Alexa, Google assistant, Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, or acustom voice assistant), the type (e.g., framework) of voice assistantdevice from which a request message came (e.g., Echo Show, Google Home,Mobile Device, Echo Dot, or others), the type of feature that wasinvoked by the message elements of the request message, the metadata foreach processed content item, content items often found together, thesuccess rate of types of message elements of request messages ininvoking appropriate features, misses in invoking items of content,information about the end user whose speech initiated the request,information about a related application, raw usage information, time ofday, repeat versus new visitor, geographic location and region fromwhich request messages originated, and authenticated end userinformation, among others.

These items of data can also be related to each other. The relationshipsof the items of data provide insight into the performance of items ofcontent as noted earlier.

There are certain especially effective places in the flow of theoperation of the platform at which the raw analytics data can becollected and there are sub-flows for how it is collected. Oncecollected, the raw data can be processed into more easily understandablestructured data. The effective places for data collection include: theinitial receipt of a request message at the API layer, the performanceof a content search by a feature server, and the processing of aresponse message by a voice experience server, among others.

Receipt of Request by Voice Experience API

A request message sent by a voice assistant device to the voiceexperience server API contains useful raw data. The raw data that issent will depend on the type of the voice assistant device, although thedata sent by many types of voice assistant devices commonly includes:user identifiers, information about the voice assistant device that wasthe source of the request message, information about the voice assistantthat was the source of the request message, and certain data (eg.,message elements) contained in the request.

The API layer of the platform translates this raw data to an abstractedform expressed according to a set of protocols shared across differentframeworks. As shown in FIG. 29, once the raw data is structured andexpressed according to the abstracted protocol, it is sent to anaggregate data store implemented as a data lake 528, for example, whereit is stored to be processed 530 later by one or more data analysisprocesses 529.

Feature Server Content Search

By creating a search index using weights on fields and permittingmessage elements of request messages to reach multiple feature contentresults, the platform can track results returned in correspondingresponse messages and items of content commonly found in the resultsacross multiple request messages. This enables the platform to show toplatform participants, through the user interface of the platform, whichof their items of content are being used most frequently and which arebeing missed. The platform participant then can decide to change thewording or structure or other characteristics of items of content ormessage elements of response messages to produce better results ininteracting with end users.

As shown in FIG. 30, when a feature server 505 queries a content index511 and receives potential results (items of content), the raw potentialresults 527 can be stored in the data lake 528. The stored dataidentifies the content items from the search results and relatedinformation about the query that returned those results such as thefeature service request. The data in the feature service request storedwith the search result data relates to the request data initially sentfrom the API because the feature service request contains the originalmessage element of the request message received from the voice assistantdevice.

Response Processing

Once the data from the message element of the original request messageand the content search results have been stored in the analytics datalake, a message element to be included in the response message can beformulated by translating the feature service response from the featureserver to a form that conforms to the protocol expected by thecorresponding voice assistant device. The process of generating themessage element for the response message is a useful point foraccumulating raw data for analytics.

For example, if the data lake 528 contained message elements from arequest message, information about the originating voice assistantdevice, and the request message as well as the response message, theanalytics process 529 could combine those datasets into a cleaner andslimmer model 530 to make it easier to show, for example, how many endusers use various types of voice assistant devices or how many requestmessages have generated successful response messages for a certain typeof voice assistant device. For example, if the voice application has anAlexa Skill and a Google Action that use the SDK to send messageelements of request messages to the voice application, the platformparticipant could learn how many end users use the Alexa Skill versusthe Google Action overall for the voice application and how many endusers use Alexa versus Google for a particular feature such as theevents feature, or how many end users of two different voice assistantdevices ask for a specific item of content.

The analytics process also can track message element types for a giventype of voice assistant device that are matched to a given feature,enabling platform participants to consider moving items of content to acustom fallback feature server. Because the original request messagecontains the original message element type, the analytics process 529can skip the graph traversal and find the feature directly. For example,if a platform participant notices that a Google Action tends to use aspecific message element type that the platform participant does notwant to map to the feature to which it is being mapped, the owner candisable that feature and customize where the message element of therequest message would go by using a custom fallback feature server or acustom feature server.

The types of analytics discussed above can be considered staticanalytics and the processing of the data to an abstract structure can bereferred to as static data analysis. As discussed later, static dataanalysis differs from what can be called dynamic data analysis orintelligent data analysis which uses machine learning to understandpatterns in the analytics data rather than displaying the data directly.

Once a message element of a request message has been mapped from its rawstate stored in the data lake 528 to a more structured form stored in adatabase 531, the raw data in the data lake can be deleted or moved intoa long-term archive by compressing the data into a file and saving it toblob storage or file storage. Archiving certain types of data enablestraining of new or revised machine learning algorithms without having tore-collect data for training and also acts as a backup against datacorruption in the analytics database 531 or data loss.

Machine Learning and Intelligent Suggestions

The analytics engine uses machine learning and large amounts ofanalytics data to provide analytics and suggestions to platformparticipants. This dynamic or intelligent data analysis can be used toprovide intelligent suggestions to platform participants on how tostructure items of content, where to put certain types of content items,which items of content work well, and which do not.

The general flow of processing analytics data, as shown in FIG. 31,includes: store raw data in data lake, draw raw data from the data lake,send raw data to static analysis, send output from static analysis tomachine learning 534, store suggestions for platform participants in aseparate database 535 to be used later, request suggestions 536 based onoutput from machine learning algorithms, and render suggestions throughthe user interface of the platform to platform participants.

Data Analysis and Processing

As shown in FIG. 31, processes within the analytics engine useinformation generated by post-processing statically analyzed data 531 aswell as raw data from pre-processed data lakes to infer relationshipsand view patterns in these relationships. The algorithms for dynamicanalysis 533 are also targeted at particular goals just as the staticanalysis step is. The goals for dynamic analysis use more than juststatic data such as usage across devices, success rates, or failurerates. Dynamic analysis uses these statistics about usage and rates tocompare certain items of content and features.

For example, as shown in FIG. 32, dynamic analysis can detect therelative performances of items of content. As dynamic analysis isperformed using amounts of aggregated data that grow over time, thedynamic analysis can achieve an increasingly deep understanding of why aparticular item of content is working better than others. This result ofthe dynamic analysis could be information about the sentence structure,types of data within an item of content, the quality of the use of wordsby the voice assistant, and other factors.

Dynamic analysis of analytics data includes, among other things:gathering data at the voice application level and at the content itemlevel. The data can include, for example: success 537 and failure 538rates of an item of content in general, success and failure rates for anitem of content when presented on a particular type of voice assistantdevice, comparing which content items are often returned together infeature content searches, and identifying queries in the feature servercontent searches that are returning common data set results, amongothers.

A significant difference in the gathering of analytics data betweenstatic analysis and dynamic analysis is that static analysis only usesthe data within the context of a particular voice application andfeature. This limitation arises because the result of static analyticsis data that applies only to the particular application and its ownfeatures and items of content. Dynamic analysis, by contrast, can useraw data derived from execution of all voice applications of allplatform participants at one time. Therefore a given platformparticipant can use the dynamic analysis of all content items of allvoice applications of all platform participants and can receiveintelligent suggestions enabling the platform participant to provide endusers effective content items.

For example, the dynamic analysis and machine learning executed by theanalytics engine of the platform could categorize 539 analytics data offour voice applications of four different platform participants. Supposethe voice applications all use a survey feature, regardless of whichmodule is the source of that feature. In each of the survey featurecontent areas, each voice application asks a similar question such as“How many Undergraduate Students are there at Hamilton College?” Supposethe question has a set of acceptable answers such as 1878, 1800, about1800, and eighteen hundred.

Based on this example, static analysis will gather information about howmany responses were successful and the types of voice assistant devicesor voice assistance 540 that yielded the successes and failures. Say,for example, that a particular type of voice assistant such as Siri hasa much higher failure rate than other voice assistants. The analyticsengine can gather information on which incorrect answers were provided.During dynamic analysis of these statistics, the analytics engine mightdetect a large number of failed responses for Siri many of which were“eighteen one hundred.” This could suggest that the language processingof a particular type of voice assistant device or voice assistant couldperform worse than other types. The end users may actually have beenspeaking “eighteen-hundred,” but Siri interpreted that speech as“eighteen one hundred.” Dynamic analysis can track types of wordscertain voice assistants interpret less accurately than other types ofvoice assistants and store that information in a structured databasejust as static analysis does. In this example, the machine learningalgorithm 534 would record that “eighteen hundred” is a difficult phrasefor Siri to process correctly. With this knowledge, the analytics enginecan provide intelligent suggestions to platform participants. Becausethe analytics engine can use usage data from all four applications ofdifferent platform participants, it can store the processed informationand provide it to all four platform participants without each of theplatform participants having access to private information that was usedto train the machine and that was processed for intelligent suggestions.

Intelligent Suggestions

Intelligent suggestions are suggestions derived from data generated bymachine learning and dynamic analysis phases of analytics processing andprovided to platform participants—on ways to structure or express orchange items of content to achieve effective voice experiences by endusers when using the platform participants' voice applications andmessage elements on one or more types of voice assistant devices. Thesesuggestions can include: re-phrasing sentences, removing words, addingwording variations, removing variations, or updating slot values, amongothers.

The suggestions are generated by sending an HTTP request to the CMS APIto request the suggestions when an item of content is being updated. TheCMS API checks the database for the latest information on, for example,the success and failure rates of certain words for certain voiceassistants or voice assistant devices and returns a collection ofsuggestions, if there are any. The CMS client (e.g., the analyticsprocess) then renders these suggestions to the platform user through theuser interface of the platform to enable the platform user to makechanges in wording based on the suggestions or to ignore thesuggestions.

Using the example above of the machine learning and dynamic analysisdetecting and tracking that Siri has a hard time with certain types ofnumbers such as “eighteen hundred,” suppose a platform participant iscreating a new survey question “When was the Declaration of Independencesigned?” with accepted answers of 1776, seventeen seventy-six, andseventeen hundred seventy-six. After the participant user enters theitems of content representing these answers, the CMS would requestsuggestions for these items of content. Because the analytics engineknows that Siri will likely speak “seventeen hundred seventy-six” as“seventeen one hundred and seventy-six,” it would suggest that theplatform participant add another answer variant of “seventeen onehundred and seventy-six” with an explanation that Siri may interpretcertain numbers incorrectly and adding this variant will help to ensurethat end users of the Apple HomePod will have a better voice interactionexperience. For example, as shown in FIG. 33, such a phrase can bepresented in the user interface for these intelligent suggestions 631.

Intelligent suggestions can be used for any type of feature or contentitem because the dynamic analysis can track data across features as wellas within the context of a specific feature to provide the bestintelligent suggestions.

Another type of intelligent suggestion in addition to suggestions aboutitems of content and suggestions about features is a recommendation toadd a particular feature to a voice application. This kind ofintelligent suggestion can be derived by tracking which features addedto similar voice applications have correlated to more success by theirvoice applications or more usage. By knowing which features are usedmost and succeed the most for voice applications in the same industry,for example, the dynamic analysis can track data about these featuresand modules and suggest to platform participants to add these featuresand modules.

For example, if there are two voice applications in the higher educationindustry and one voice application, since adding the survey feature, hasexperience more usage and higher success rates, the dynamic analysis candetect that this feature is a cause for the greater success of the firstvoice application and suggest to add a similar feature to the secondapplication accompanied by the reason that other platform participantsin their industry are experiencing greater success when including thatfeature.

Data Layer

The data layer defines the types of storage used by the analytics engineand how those types of storage interact with other parts of businesslogic or APIs and applications. The primary stores include: a contentdatabase, an analytics data lake, an analytics structured database, afile and blob storage, content indices, and a graph database, amongothers.

Each major store is designed to be scalable using cloud technologies sothat they can be replicated across regions of the world, keep datasynced, and grow in size and throughput.

Content Database

The content database is responsible for storing data related to managingitems of content hosted by the platform. In some implementations, thisdatabase is a relational SQL-style database that relates data aboutplatform participants, voice applications, modules, features, items ofcontent, and other data.

The content database is updated through the CMS API using a connectionfrom the CMS server and the database. Requests made to the CMS by aplatform participant through the user interface of the platform enablethe platform participant to update the items of content.

This database can be implemented as a PostgreSQL database or any otherSQL-style database.

File and Blob Storage

The file and blob store can be implemented as a traditional file storein the cloud to enable scalable storage with security. The file and blobstore contains files uploaded by platform participants, for example,audio recordings, video files, or images, or combinations of them. Eachof these files is associated with a publicly accessible URL to enablethe voice assistant devices to access the files, for example, to streamthe audio recordings and video files or render the images on voiceassistant devices that support those formats.

When a platform participant uploads a file, the file data goes throughthe CMS API to the file and blob storage. Once the upload is complete,the URL of the file is sent as the reply to the requesting client and areference to this file's URL is stored in the content database. Platformparticipants can also remove and update files in this storage using theCMS through the user interface of the platform.

In some implementations, the file and blob store can be implemented asan Amazon Web Services S3 Bucket.

Content Indices

The content indices are a collection of elastic search indexes thatcontain data from items of content in the content database. The contentindices provide better performing content searches for the featureservers. When a query is made against an index from a feature server, acollection of best matching results is returned. The elastic searchindex enables adding weights to certain properties of a given type ofdata that is being added to the index as described earlier.

Content items in the content indices are updated by the CMS API when anitem of content is added, updated, or deleted by a platform participant.

Graph Database

The graph database stores a graph of the relationships between features,message elements of request messages, and message element slots. Thegraph database is used during the graph traversal stage of the businesslogic layer when a request message is received from a voice assistantdevice. The graph can be traversed using the edges between intents,slots, and features to find the most appropriate feature to use for amessage element of a request message from a voice assistant device.

The graph database is updated by the participant users who manage therelationships for new or updated message element types of, for example,Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Analytics Data Lake

The analytics data lake is a large data store for unstructured analyticsdata. It is used to add foundational information based on requestmessages that come from voice assistants and content searches fromfeature servers. The static analysis and dynamic analysis phases andtasks consume the large amounts of data and structure it into smallerand more understandable pieces of information that are valuable to theanalytics engine such as usage, success/failure rates, and others

Analytics Structured Database

The analytics structured database is a SQL-style relational databaseused by the CMS to show and provide structured analytics data and tostore intelligent suggestion data. This database is updated by the dataanalysis phase after retrieving information from the data lake andmapping it to the structured table relationships that exist in thestructured database.

Other implementations are also within the scope of the following claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising exposing user interface features in a user interface of a platform, the platform being for developing voice applications, the user interface features enabling a user to engage in development of the voice applications, each of the voice applications to include responses to be provided by the voice application to voice assistant devices that conform to one or more different voice assistant frameworks, each of the voice assistant frameworks defining formats for requests for service and formats for responses to the requests for service, the requests being based on speech of end-users spoken to the voice assistant devices, at least some of the responses being expressed as audible speech by the voice assistant devices to the end-users, the responses including items of content, the user interface features exposed in the user interface of the development platform enabling the user to select and manage the items of content to be included in the responses, in real time while the items of content are being selected and managed by the user while engaged in development of the voice applications, exposing through the user interface, information about effectiveness of one or more of the items of content, and executing the voice application to generate the responses including the selected and managed items of content.
 2. The method of claim 1 comprising aggregating usage data from the voice assistant devices that conform to the two or more different voice assistant frameworks, and generating the information about the effectiveness of the one or more items of content from the aggregated usage data.
 3. The method of claim 2 in which the usage data is aggregated through a universal API applicable to the two or more different voice assistant frameworks.
 4. The method of claim 2 in which the information about the effectiveness is generated by a machine learning algorithm.
 5. The method of claim 1 comprising receiving through a communication network from voice assistant devices that conform to one or more of the different voice assistant frameworks, requests for service, the requests being based on speech of end-users, the speech of the end users expressing intents, the responses configured to be sent through the communication network to the voice assistant devices to cause them to respond to the respective end users, evaluating measures of the effectiveness of the responses, and based on the relative measures of effectiveness of the responses enabling a user through the user interface of the platform to manage subsequent responses to requests for service.
 6. The method of claim 5 in which the voice assistant devices from which the requests are received conform to two or more different voice assistant frameworks.
 7. The method of claim 5 comprising presenting suggested responses to the user of the platform through the user interface of the portal based on the evaluated measures of effectiveness and enabling the user to select responses to be sent to the voice assistant devices based on the suggested responses.
 8. The method of claim 5 in which evaluating measures of the effectiveness comprises evaluating effectiveness of items of content included in the responses across two or more of the different voice assistant frameworks.
 9. The method of claim 5 in which evaluating measures of the effectiveness comprises evaluating effectiveness of the responses relative to the respective voice assistant frameworks of the voice assistant devices to which the responses are to be sent.
 10. The method of claim 5 in which evaluating measures of the effectiveness comprises evaluating effectiveness of the responses relative to two or more different voice applications configured to receive the requests and determine the responses.
 11. The method of claim 5 comprising managing items of content to be carried in subsequent responses based on the measures of effectiveness.
 12. The method of claim 1 comprising receiving through a communication network from voice assistant devices that conform to one or more different voice assistant frameworks, requests for service based on speech of end-users, the speech of the end users expressing intents, the responses configured to be sent through the communication network to the voice assistant devices to cause them to respond to the respective end users the items of content included in a given one of the responses being selected from alternative possible items of content, the selection of the items of content to be included in the given response being based on a context of the expressed intent of an end user.
 13. The method of claim 12 in which the voice assistant devices from which the requests are received conform to two or more different voice assistant frameworks.
 14. The method of claim 12 in which one of the voice assistant frameworks comprises a chatbot framework.
 15. The method of claim 12 in which the context of the expressed intent of the end user comprises a geographic location of the voice assistant device to which the response is to be sent.
 16. The method of claim 12 in which the context of the expressed intent of the end user comprises demographic characteristics of the end user.
 17. The method of claim 16 in which the demographic characteristics comprise age.
 18. The method of claim 16 in which the demographic characteristics comprise linguistic characteristics inferred from a geographic location of the voice assistant device to which the responses to be sent or inferred from characteristics of words contained in the received requests.
 19. The method of claim 18 in which the linguistic characteristics comprise an accent.
 20. The method of claim 18 in which the linguistic characteristics comprise local colloquialisms or local references.
 21. The method of claim 16 in which the demographic characteristics comprise gender.
 22. The method of claim 16 comprising end user preferences based on which the items of content to be included in the given response can be selected.
 23. The method of claim 1 comprising configuring the user interface of the platform to enable development of voice applications for processing requests received from voice assistant devices and for generating the responses for the voice assistant devices to present to end users, maintaining modules of features to which the requests can be matched to generate the responses, including in each of the modules, a set of features that correspond to contexts in which the responses will be presented to the end users, the maintaining of the modules comprising (a) maintaining standard modules for corresponding contexts, and (b) enabling generation and maintenance of custom modules of features to which the requests can be matched to generate custom responses for the voice assistant devices, and exposing the modules through the user interface of the platform.
 24. The method of claim 23 comprising maintaining items of content to be used with the features in generating the responses, the maintaining of the items of content comprising (a) maintaining standard items of content, and (b) enabling generation and maintenance of custom items of content to be used with the features to generate custom responses for the voice assistant devices.
 25. The method of claim 23 in which the contexts relate to products or services in a defined market segment.
 26. The method of claim 23 in which the contexts relate to demographics of target groups of end users.
 27. The method of claim 23 in which the contexts relate to capabilities of the voice assistant devices.
 28. The method of claim 23 in which the contexts relate to types of content items to be used with the features in generating the responses. 